For increasingly data-savvy clients, lawyers can no longer give "it depends" answers rooted in anecdata. Clients insist that their lawyers justify their reasoning, and with more than a limited set of war stories. The considered judgment of an experienced lawyer is unquestionably valuable. However, on balance, clients would rather have the considered judgment of an experienced lawyer informed by the most relevant information required to answer their questions. Data-Driven Law: Data Analytics and the New Legal Services helps legal professionals meet the challenges posed by a data-driven approach to delivering legal services. Its chapters are written by leading experts who cover such topics as: Mining legal data Computational law Uncovering bias through the use of Big Data Quantifying the quality of legal services Data mining and decision-making Contract analytics and contract standards In addition to providing clients with data-based insight, legal firms can track a matter with data from beginning to end, from the marketing spend through to the type of matter, hours spent, billed, and collected, including metrics on profitability and success. Firms can organize and collect documents after a matter and even automate them for reuse. Data on marketing related to a matter can be an amazing source of insight about which practice areas are most profitable. Data-driven decision-making requires firms to think differently about their workflow. Most firms warehouse their files, never to be seen again after the matter closes. Running a data-driven firm requires lawyers and their teams to treat information about the work as part of the service, and to collect, standardize, and analyze matter data from cradle to grave. More than anything, using data in a law practice requires a different mindset about the value of this information. This book helps legal professionals to develop this data-driven mindset.

This book explores the challenges, opportunities, applications, and implications of applying qualitative research to critical questions of research and practice in the field of organizational risk and safety. The book brings together a diverse perspective to explore the practice of conducting qualitative research as well as to debate the quality of research and knowledge, drawing on a range of different perspectives and traditions. It offers novel and innovative developments in data collection and data analysis methods and tools that can be applied to safety, risk, and accident analysis in complex systems. It also will present practical issues associated with data access and empirical research in challenging and high-stakes environments. This book will provide academics, researchers, students, and professionals in the fields of safety, accident analysis, and risk with a broad-range and expert guide to the key issues and debates in the field, as well as a set of exemplary cases and reflective narratives from leading researchers in the field.

The Islamic revolution was a major turning point in the modern history of Iran and one of the main developments in the contemporary Middle East. Carried by a wave of popular support, the revolution represented a new political system and leadership, with a new ideology and a vision of the ideal society. It embodied a promise - and raised expectations - of a brighter future for the country and the people. Once in power, however, the revolutionary leaders were often obliged to compromise revolutionary ideology in pragmatic response to the exigencies of their situation. Yet, opinions as to the actual policy which should be implemented and to the particular fields and pace of the change have differed, often drastically, among those representing the various political trends - radicals or extremists, pragmatists or reformists, conservatives of hard-liners, as they are often depicted.

This book focuses on ways to better manage and prevent aircraft-based homicide events while in flight using alternate technology to replace the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and/or Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) functions. While these events are infrequent, the implementation of real-time predictive maintenance allows aircraft operators to better manage both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance events. Aviation Safety and Security: Utilizing Technology to Prevent Aircraft Fatality explores historical events of in-flight homicide and includes relevant accident case study excerpts from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB). FEATURES Explores historical events of in-flight homicide and offers solutions for ways to mitigate risk Explains how alternate technologies can be implemented to address in-flight safety issues Demonstrates that metrics for change are not solely for safety but also for financial savings for aircraft operation Includes relevant accident case study excerpts from the NTSB and AAIB Expresses the need for real-time predictive maintenance Stephen J Wright is an academic Professor at the faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences at Tampere University, Finland, specializing in aviation, aeronautical engineering, and aircraft systems.

Captures a moment in history through the experiences of Environmental Health Practitioners in meeting the complex challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Features the observations of practitioners in the field as to the different practical issues encountered globally, suggesting the lessons learnt for current practice in infectious disease control. Expands upon the reflections of some of the professional bodies around the world as to how the response of EHPs to the COVID-19 pandemic should see a renewed commitment to public health through Environmental Health. Provides a valuable resource to EHPs in current practice and training, other public health professionals and those looking to build a better health protection service, including policy makers.

This volume brings together both political and educational scientists. While educational research literature has so far not systematically addressed the tool of simulations of decision-making, political scientists have hardly used insights from research on assessment or on motivation and interest of students. Almost all political science publications on simulations merely discuss how to implement the tool in class and fall short of providing evidence of the effects on student outcomes such as increased interest and performance. Combining the two disciplines is mutually enriching. Political science benefits from state of the art educational science measuring and testing of the claims made by the proponents of simulations, while educational sciences adds the systematic analysis of simulations of decision-making to their list of empirical objects, which also adds insights to the theories on the affective component of student learning. It is the explicit aim of the volume to address how simulating decision-making environments fosters learning. Implications for research and practice regarding student learning are addressed in all chapters.

This book covers fire and extinguishing theory and reliability theory and how to validate any survey within the field of engineering. It's based on a year's study of historical literature, using critical review and document analysis. It covers how data is collected, analyzed, and presented. It discusses reliability theory, calculation, and uncertainty analysis, and after validating proposes a new methodology and approach using general scientific value and examples. Features Includes an in-depth study on relevant sprinkler reliability studies based for the first time on critical review and document analysis Presents a scientific validating analysis of studies based on how a survey should be conducted Critiques the fact that reliability of a sprinkler system as its ability to function as designed, has never been subject to surveys Suggestions for new survey methodology that can be used for the field of engineering, including all active and passive fire protection measures Discusses extinguishing theory, general design of extinguishing systems, different systems and the reliability of them all "Reliability Data on Fire Sprinkler Systems" will be of interest to Reliability Engineers, Systems, Architecture and Engineers, Design, Maintenance, Mechanical and, Civil Engineers, as well as those working in the field of fire protection and building and fire codes.

Engineering systems are an important element of world economy. Each year billions of dollars are spent to develop, manufacture, operate, and maintain various types of engineering systems about the globe. The reliability and usability of these systems have become important because of their increasing complexity, sophistication, and non-specialist users. Global competition and other factors are forcing manufacturers to produce highly reliable and usable engineering systems. Along with examples and solutions, this book integrates engineering systems reliability and usability into a single volume for those individuals that directly or indirectly are concerned with these areas.

The second volume of companion books on comparative student discipline identifies the best practices in dealing with student misconduct, on six continents, in a legally sound manner. It is essential for educators to examine national as well as international practices addressing student misconduct in schools because learner misbehavior often has a detrimental effect on the quality of teaching and learning in elementary and secondary schools. The countries covered are Brazil, China, Malaysia, Turkey and South Africa.

Inside every mother is a fierce, resilient, intuitive woman who has the ability to tap into an indomitable mindset and create heroic outcomes--for her children, her family, her community and for herself--she is a Warrior Mom. In Warrior Mom, (previously published as Miracle Mindset), celebrity health expert and four-time New York Times bestselling author, JJ Virgin reveals how one life-altering event taught her to trust her instincts, pay attention to the details that matter and defy the odds--and she shares how you can too.In 2012, JJ Virgin was in a hospital room next to her sixteen-year-old son who was struck by a hit-and-run driver and left for dead. She was told by doctors that he wouldn't last through the night and to let him go. With every reason to give up, JJ chose instead to invest her energy into the hope that her son would not just survive, but thrive. In Warrior Mom, she shares the lessons that gave her the courage to overcome the worst moment of her life. During this difficult time, she learned valuable personal lessons that helped her rebuild her life and find success and purpose in herself, her work, and teach her sons and community how to face their own obstacles and trials. Lessons like "Don't Wish It Were Easier, Make Yourself Stronger" and "Your Limitations Will Become Your Life" will lead you to your own personal power and purpose, even when the deck seems stacked against you. With true stories from her life, her clients, and other well-known thought leaders, she can help you transform your mindset and your daily habits to endure the difficult battles that life sends your way. Insightful, personal, and completely relatable, this book proves that miracles are possible when you show up, remain positive, and do the work.

Nowadays, decision problems are pervaded with incomplete knowledge, i.e., imprecision and/or uncertain information, both in the problem description and in the preferential information. In this volume leading scientists in the field address various theoretical and practical aspects related to the handling of this incompleteness. The problems discussed are taken from multi-objective linear programming, rationality considerations in preference modelling, non-probabilistic utility theory, data fusion, group decision making and multicriteria decision aid. The book is oriented towards researchers, graduate and postgraduate students in decision analysis, fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic, and operations research/management science.

This book develops the notion that companies can succeed on the basis of risk management, much as companies compete on efficiency, costs, labor, location, and other dimensions. The reality of risk and how it impacts companies is that it is much more definite, often catastrophic and looks more like a shock. This is striking, as a difference between firms on risk different than a marginal difference in operating efficiencies, for example. Competing on Risk Management requires a discipline, a commitment to using information and recognizing shocks and then acting upon those to redistribute assets. This book will examine how leading firms that compete on risk have done this and showcase best practices and impacts to the capital structure of firms and their organizational formation.

Classical decision theory evaluates entire worlds, specified so as to include everything a decision-maker cares about. Thus applying decision theory requires performing computations far beyond an ordinary decision-maker's ability. In this book Paul Weirich explains how individuals can simplify and streamline their choices. He shows how different 'parts' of options (intrinsic, temporal, spatiotemporal, causal) are separable, so that we can know what difference one part makes to the value of an option, regardless of what happens in the other parts. He suggests that the primary value of options is found in basic intrinsic attitudes towards outcomes: desires, aversions, or indifferences. And using these two facts he argues that we need only compare small parts of the options we face in order to make a rational decision. This important book will interest readers in decision theory, economics, and the behavioral sciences.

Teachers at the Table is based on the simple premise that policy matters in education and teachers matter to policy. Policy reflects and shapes society's beliefs about schools, teachers, children, learning, and society, as well as the power structures embedded in our communities and decision-making processes. If policy is a public response to perceived social problems, it matters who is at the table when the problems are defined, the agendas set, and the policy itself designed. Although teachers may be central to the implementation of education policy, they are marginal to the design of it, especially around issues of teaching and learning. In short, teachers are not at the table. This is important because the lack of teacher voice in educational policymaking disconnects the goals and design of education policy from the actual lived challenges of implementing it. This book draws on a qualitative case study with both practicing and pre-service teachers involved in a policy advocacy professional development program. Findings from the study illustrate norms and routines (the nature of teachers' work, hierarchy of authority and professional status) that act as barriers to teacher involvement in policy creation. The book then follows with clear examples of teacher "pushback" against these same norms and details the conditions under which teachers can interact in authentic ways with decision making structures in schools and policy. Teachers at the Table is a unique examination into these dynamics, informing the critical efforts of teacher leaders to participate in educational policy creation, and helps us to understand, and more importantly, act upon the structures around teachers to better support their involvement in policymaking - with the ultimate goal of producing better educational policy that is more relevant and responsive to the youth, educators, families, and communities it serves.

Existing research methods textbooks emphasize the mechanics of HOW to conduct research studies. However, many students fail to see WHY it is important to learn about research because they will never conduct research studies. These students do not become engaged in learning and believe that research courses and textbooks are useless. They do not see the need of developing "research literacy" to understand the applications and limitations of research to their daily lives. This book engages students with a nonmathematical presentation that includes real examples of the consequences of research errors in daily life. The organization facilitates learning with objectives, concepts, description of errors, best practices, and examples. This is a research methods textbook for students who fear research textbooks. The diversity of topics in this book permits application to research methods courses in these academic fields: Economics, Education, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology. This should be the first book for all students to introduce research and develop "research literacy".

Key Features Collects the ideas underpinning the AHP method and discusses them together with many improvements and extensions present in the literature. As a result, the reader will receive a much more complete picture of the method. Aimed at theorists and advanced practitioners from a wide range of scientific fields, including the social, management, and technical sciences Highlights the intuitive assumptions underlying the mathematical methods that make up AHP and the pairwise comparisons method Provides software code for readers who wish to practise AHP analysis using Wolfram Language.

Aware that a single crisis event can devastate their business, managers must be prepared for the worst from an expansive array of threats. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Security in Business comprises a professional and scholarly collection of work in this critical field. Risks come in many varieties, and there is a growing concern for organizations to respond to the challenge. Businesses can be severely impacted by natural and man-made disasters including: floods, earthquakes, tsunami, environmental threats, terrorism, supply chain risks, pandemics, and white-collar crime. An organization's resilience is dependent not only on their own system security and infrastructure, but also on the wider infrastructure providing health and safety, utilities, transportation, and communication. Developments in risk security and management knowledge offer a path towards resilience and recovery through effective leadership in crisis situations. The growing body of knowledge in research and methodologies is a basis for decisions to safeguard people and assets, and to ensure the survivability of an organization from a crisis. Not only can businesses become more secure through risk management, but an effective program can also facilitate innovation and afford new opportunities. With chapters written by an international selection of leading experts, this book fills a crucial gap in our current knowledge of risk, crisis and security in business by exploring a broad spectrum of topics in the field. Edited by a globally-recognized expert on risk, this book is a vital reference for researchers, professionals and students with an interest in current scholarship in this expanding discipline.

The Feeling of Risk brings together the work of Paul Slovic, one of the world's leading analysts of risk, to describe the extension of risk perception research into the first decade of this new century. In this collection of important works, Paul Slovic explores the conception of 'risk as feelings' and examines the interaction of feeling and cognition in the perception of risk. He also examines the elements of knowledge, cognitive skill, and communication necessary for good decisions in the face of risk. The first section of the book looks at the difficulty of understanding risk without an emotional component, for example that disaster statistics lack emotion and thus fail to convey the true meaning of disasters and fail to motivate proper action to prevent them. The book also highlights other important perspectives on risk arising from cultural worldviews and concerns about specific hazards pertaining to blood transfusion, biotechnology, prescription drugs, smoking, terrorism, and nanotechnology. Following on from The Perception of Risk (2000), this book presents some of the most significant research on risk perception in recent years, providing essential lessons for all those involved in risk perception and communication.

Decision analysis has become widely recognized as an important process for translating science into management actions. With climate change and other systemic threats as driving forces in creating environmental and engineering problems, there is a great need for understanding decision making frameworks through a case-study based approach. Management of environmental and engineering projects is often complicated and multidisciplinary in scope and nature, thus issues that arise can be difficult to solve analytically. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis: Case Studies in Engineering and the Environment provides detailed description of MCDA methods and tools and illustrates their applications through case studies focused on sustainability and system engineering applications. New in the Second Edition: Addresses current and emerging environmental and engineering problems Includes seven new case studies to illustrate different management situations applicable at the international level Builds on real case studies from recent and relevant environmental and engineering management experience Describes advanced MCDA techniques and extensions used by practitioners Provides corresponding decision models implemented using the DECERNS software package Gives a more holistic approach to teaching MCDA methodology with a focus on sustainable solutions and adoption of new technologies, including nanotechnology and synthetic biology Given the novelty and inherent applicability of this decision-making framework to the environmental and engineering fields, a greater number of teaching tools for this topic need to be made available. This book provides those teaching tools, covering the breadth of the applications of MCDA methodologies with clear explanations of the MCDA process. The case studies are implemented in the DECERNS software package, allowing readers to experiment and explore and to understand the full process by which environmental managers assess these problems. This book is a great resource for professionals and students seeking to learn decision analysis techniques and apply similar frameworks to environmental and engineering projects

This book discusses the evolution of security and privacy issues and brings related technological tools, techniques, and solutions into one single source. The book will take readers on a journey to understanding the security issues and possible solutions involving various threats, attacks, and defense mechanisms, which include IoT, cloud computing, Big Data, lightweight cryptography for blockchain, and data-intensive techniques, and how it can be applied to various applications for general and specific use. Graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, and those working in this industry will find this book easy to understand and use for security applications and privacy issues.

This book covers the application of algebraic inequalities for reliability improvement and for uncertainty and risk reduction. It equips readers with powerful domain-independent methods for reducing risk based on algebraic inequalities and demonstrates the significant benefits derived from the application for risk and uncertainty reduction. Algebraic inequalities: * Provide a powerful reliability improvement, risk and uncertainty reduction method that transcends engineering and can be applied in various domains of human activity * Present an effective tool for dealing with deep uncertainty related to key reliability-critical parameters of systems and processes * Permit meaningful interpretations which link abstract inequalities with the real world * Offer a tool for determining tight bounds for the variation of risk-critical parameters and complying the design with these bounds to avoid failure * Allow optimising designs and processes by minimising the deviation of critical output parameters from their specified values and maximising their performance This book is primarily for engineering professionals and academic researchers in virtually all existing engineering disciplines.