The most memorable gift you can give to a new graduate is sound advice for a successful life. In his second book, author Clark Gaither gives his best advice in The Graduate's Handbook, highlighting the hardest easy lessons he's ever learned. For a head start on a life of passion and purpose, this gift book imbues graduates with hope, inspiration, motivation, and the truth about living life on life's terms. The Graduate's Handbook is more than a thoughtful gift book-it offers insight on careers, procrastination, reality-based living, fear, failure, and relationships. Page after page includes profound quotations from the author himself and dozens of successful authors, philosophers, and historical figures. "We are glorious creatures of the universe destined to accomplish, to build, to produce, to create, to innovate." Graduates can make this book extra special by writing their future goals in the front, which they can look back on years from now to see how far they've come! Each gift book includes an area for inscription to make it a personal gift from you. Whether you're buying for a high school or college graduate, this keepsake will guide and teach them for many years to come!

This collection of essays deals with the situated management of risk in a wide variety of organizational settings - aviation, mental health, railway project management, energy, toy manufacture, financial services, chemicals regulation, and NGOs. Each chapter connects the analysis of risk studies with critical themes in organization studies more generally based on access to, and observations of, actors in the field. The emphasis in these contributions is upon the variety of ways in which organizational actors, in combination with a range of material technologies and artefacts, such as safety reporting systems, risk maps and key risk indicators, accomplish and make sense of the normal work of managing risk - riskwork. In contrast to a preoccupation with disasters and accidents after the event, the volume as whole is focused on the situationally specific character of routine risk management work. It emerges that this riskwork is highly varied, entangled with material artefacts which represent and construct risks and, importantly, is not confined to formal risk management departments or personnel. Each chapter suggests that the distributed nature of this riskwork lives uneasily with formalized risk management protocols and accountability requirements. In addition, riskwork as an organizational process makes contested issues of identity and values readily visible. These 'back stage/back office' encounters with risk are revealed as being as much emotional as they are rationally calculative. Overall, the collection combines constructivist sensibilities about risk objects with a micro-sociological orientation to the study of organizations.

The Money Shot provides a real look into the lives of a professional athlete and how this new-found fame and fortune can change their lives. Walking through the financial maze can be challenging for athletes who really need to focus on game performance. The tips and tools in the Money Shot allows athletes and their families to clearly identify how to find success in the money game so they can focus on career success as an athlete. Exploring the "do's" and "don'ts" of saving, spending, using, and growing money, the Money Shot is designed to provide the roadmap to successful financial performance by laying out the steps play byplay. Athletes and their families gain knowledge to make the right moves for their financial present and future, and confidence to know they are performing at peak levels in the money game.

Over the last 25 years, evolutionary game theory has grown with theoretical contributions from the disciplines of mathematics, economics, computer science and biology. It is now ripe for applications. In this book, Daniel Friedman--an economist trained in mathematics--and Barry Sinervo--a biologist trained in mathematics--offer the first unified account of evolutionary game theory aimed at applied researchers. They show how to use a single set of tools to build useful models for three different worlds: the natural world studied by biologists; the social world studied by anthropologists, economists, political scientists and others; and the virtual world built by computer scientists and engineers. The first six chapters offer an accessible introduction to core concepts of evolutionary game theory. These include fitness, replicator dynamics, sexual dynamics, memes and genes, single and multiple population games, Nash equilibrium and evolutionarily stable states, noisy best response and other adaptive processes, the Price equation, and cellular automata. The material connects evolutionary game theory with classic population genetic models, and also with classical game theory. Notably, these chapters also show how to estimate payoff and choice parameters from the data. The last eight chapters present exemplary game theory applications. These include a new coevolutionary predator-prey learning model extending rock-paper-scissors; models that use human subject laboratory data to estimate learning dynamics; new approaches to plastic strategies and life cycle strategies, including estimates for male elephant seals; a comparison of machine learning techniques for preserving diversity to those seen in the natural world; analyses of congestion in traffic networks (either internet or highways) and the "price of anarchy "; environmental and trade policy analysis based on evolutionary games; the evolution of cooperation; and speciation. As an aid for instruction, a web site provides downloadable computational tools written in the R programming language, Matlab, Mathematica and Excel.

Now revised and updated, this introduction to decision theory is both accessible and comprehensive, covering topics including decision making under ignorance and risk, the foundations of utility theory, the debate over subjective and objective probability, Bayesianism, causal decision theory, game theory, and social choice theory. No mathematical skills are assumed, with all concepts and results explained in non-technical and intuitive as well as more formal ways. There are now over 140 exercises with solutions, along with a glossary of key terms and concepts. This second edition includes a new chapter on risk aversion as well as updated discussions of numerous central ideas, including Newcomb's problem, prisoner's dilemmas, and Arrow's impossibility theorem. The book will appeal particularly to philosophy students but also to readers in a range of disciplines, from computer science and psychology to economics and political science.

Die Autoren prasentieren die Resultate einer prozessbegleitenden Evaluation eines Qualitatsverfahrens, das auf der Wahrnehmung konkreter Unterrichtssituationen, deren professioneller Auswertung und intensiver padagogischer Zusammenarbeit in Kleingruppen beruht. Neben der gesteigerten Selbstreflexion und einer Verbesserung des eigenen Unterrichts erlebten die Lehrer eine deutliche Verbesserung ihrer kollegialen Beziehungen und ihrer Zusammenarbeit. Als starkendes Element wurde das vertrauensvolle und wertschatzende padagogische Gesprach zur Unterstutzung konkreter Unterrichtssituationen erfahren. Erreicht wurde dieser Erfolg durch ein Verfahren, das mit der Unterstutzung externer Lehrer auf die Selbstqualifizierung eines Kollegiums angelegt ist.

Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) is of worldwide significance, and is strongly related to the detection of damage in engineering structures (buildings, bridges, aircrafts, ships, pressure vessels, etc.) using non-invasive techniques (ultrasound, X-rays, Radar, neutrons, thermography, vibrations, acoustic emission, etc.). Emerging Technologies in Non-Destructive Testing VI includes the contributions to the 6th International Conference in Non-Destructive Testing (Brussels, Belgium, 27-29 May 2015). The book intends to give the latest updates in the field of NDT, and is organized in chapters on high impact subjects, such as: - Applications of NDT methods related to cultural heritage structures; - Materials like ceramics, polymer and composites; - Railways; - Glass panels; - Steel structures; - Wind turbines, and - Aerospace structures. Other subjects include the monitoring of 3D-printed components, self-healing mechanisms in concrete, and applications of NDT in biological materials. Emerging Technologies in Non-Destructive Testing VI provides insight in the latest developments in the different techniques with a huge social impact. In addition, it facilitates the exchange of ideas among scientists and the industry, disseminating academic knowledge to society - and the other way around: giving feedback from the experience of practitioners to academia.

This book analyzes the risk management process in relation to building design and operation and on this basis proposes a method and a set of tools that will improve the planning and evaluation of design solutions in order to control risks in the operation and management phase. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between design choices and the long-term performance of buildings in meeting requirements expressing user and client needs. A risk dashboard is presented as a risk measurement framework that identifies and addresses areas of uncertainty surrounding the satisfaction of particularly relevant requirements over time. This risk dashboard will assist both designers and clients. It will support designers by enabling them to improve the maintainability of project performance and will aid clients both in devising a brief that emphasizes the most relevant aspects of maintainability and in evaluating project proposals according to long-term risks. The results of assessment of the proposed method and tools in tests run on a number of buildings of worship are also reported.

Across the world organizations continue to be damaged and brought down by systemic non-compliance or the misdeeds of a few, and newspapers abound with examples of corporate and NGO scandals and crimes. This despite the increasing ethical demands stakeholders are making of business, the exposing power of social media, the proliferating requirements of compliance laws and regulations, and the burgeoning numbers of policies, procedures and compliance officers which have been put in place in response. So what's going on? Why isn't compliance working? The Business Guide to Effective Compliance and Ethics examines how rules-based, tick-box, defensible compliance continues to fail, and lays out a new approach for organizations seeking to flourish and succeed.

Written for any organization and businesses large and small, it provides clear, thorough and practical guidance for practitioners and decision-makers. It explains in layman's terms the skills, tools and mindset needed to develop and deliver a best practice compliance and ethics programme - one that meets the requirements made by law, stakeholders and society, and protects your organization from risk of fines, penalties and reputational damage. But this is also a book for all those interested in how to build employee engagement and motivation. The Business Guide to Effective Compliance and Ethics demonstrates the value - including competitive advantage, career satisfaction, employee and customer loyalty, and brand enhancement - that a truly effective compliance and ethics programme can bring when it is working hand in hand with a values-based culture of shared ownership.

This book proposes a model for understanding how innovative policy decisions are taken in complex political and organizational systems as well as the possible strategies that the promoter of the innovation can employ in order to maximize the probability of successful adoption and implementation. It presents a conceptual framework for the analysis of decisional situations in order to design the most appropriate strategies for overcoming conflict (e.g. of the NIMBY variety) and/or increasing the engagement of potentially interested actors. The book includes a template for decisional case studies, a protocol for the definition of a decisional strategy, and an exercise in decisional analysis.

This book presents recent advances in the theory and application of the Best-Worst Method (BWM). It includes selected papers from the Second International Workshop on Best-Worst Method (BWM2021), held in Delft, The Netherlands from 10-11 June, 2021, and provides valuable insights on why and how to use BWM in a diverse range of applications including health, energy, supply chain management, and engineering. The book highlights the use of BWM in different settings including single decision-making vs group decision-making, and complete information vs incomplete and uncertain situations. The papers gathered here will benefit academics and practitioners who are involved in multi-criteria decision-making and decision analysis.

This book is a collection of applications of analytic techniques to a number of popular sports including baseball, basketball, hockey, Jai Alai, NFL football and horseracing. We focus on both the statistics of the sporting events and betting strategies on the events. The subject is fascinating as there are many twists and subtle complicated decisions.Sports analytics applies mathematical and statistical methods to important questions in the structure and performance of sporting activities using the same basic methods and approaches as data analysts in other disciplines.Sports games and events are a fruitful area for study and to evaluate betting strategies as there is extensive data and mean reversion. With prices changing continuously, risk arbitrage bets can be made. Moreover, little errors, like a penalty to a player or an error in a call by a referee, can change the score of a game and corresponding betting prices. The collection and analysis of in-game data can inform players, coaches and staff on effective decision making during sporting events.Novel features of the book include: an analysis of who were the greatest baseball batters; analyses of the players most important to team success (and they are not necessarily the best players) in basketball, NFL football and hockey; a tutorial on risk arbitrage and its applications to NFL football and NBA basketball; a discussion of many ad hoc decision rules by coaches and players and what was really optimal; in the racing section we discuss breeding, the analysis of various bets like the Rainbow and ordinary Pick 6, a discussion and betting on the most important races and a visit to the Breeders' Cup with Ed Thorp to demonstrate the place and show system in action.

Knowledge in an Uncertain World is an exploration of the relation between knowledge, reasons, and justification. According to the primary argument of the book, you can rely on what you know in action and belief, because what you know can be a reason you have and you can rely on the reasons you have. If knowledge doesn't allow for a chance of error, then this result is unsurprising. But if knowledge does allow for a chance of error - as seems required if we know much of anything at all - this result entails the denial of a received position in epistemology. Because any chance of error, if the stakes are high enough, can make a difference to what can be relied on, two subjects with the same evidence and generally the same strength of epistemic position for a proposition can differ with respect to whether they are in a position to know.
In defending these points, Fantl and McGrath investigate the ramifications for debates about epistemological externalism and contextualism, the value and importance of knowledge, Wittgensteinian hinge propositions, Bayesianism, and the nature of belief. The book is essential reading for epistemologists, philosophers who work on reasons and rationality, philosophers of language and mind, and decision theorists.

The premise of this book is that most activity in everyday life and work is based on tasks that are novel, infrequent in our experience, or variable with respect to the action to be taken. Such tasks require decisions to be made and actions taken in the face of ambiguous or incomplete information. Time pressure is frequently great and penalties for failure are severe. Examples include investing in markets, controlling industrial accidents, and detecting fraud. The environments in which such tasks occur defy a definition of optimal performance, yet the benefits of successful decision making are considerable. The authors refer to domains without criteria for optimal performance as competency-based and describe the able behaviour of individuals who work in them by the term competence. The chapters examine the propositions that metacognitive processes give structure to otherwise ill-structured tasks and are fundamental enablers of decision-making performance.

Individual decision making can often be wrong due to misinformation, impulses, or biases. Collective decision making, on the other hand, can be surprisingly accurate. In Democratic Reason, Helene Landemore demonstrates that the very factors behind the superiority of collective decision making add up to a strong case for democracy. She shows that the processes and procedures of democratic decision making form a cognitive system that ensures that decisions taken by the many are more likely to be right than decisions taken by the few. Democracy as a form of government is therefore valuable not only because it is legitimate and just, but also because it is smart. Landemore considers how the argument plays out with respect to two main mechanisms of democratic politics: inclusive deliberation and majority rule. In deliberative settings, the truth-tracking properties of deliberation are enhanced more by inclusiveness than by individual competence. Landemore explores this idea in the contexts of representative democracy and the selection of representatives. She also discusses several models for the "wisdom of crowds" channeled by majority rule, examining the trade-offs between inclusiveness and individual competence in voting. When inclusive deliberation and majority rule are combined, they beat less inclusive methods, in which one person or a small group decide. Democratic Reason thus establishes the superiority of democracy as a way of making decisions for the common good.

Processes of collective decision making are seen throughout modern society. How does a government decide on an investment strategy within the health care and educational sectors? Should a government or a community introduce measures to combat climate change and CO2 emissions, even if others choose not too? Should a country develop a nuclear capability despite the risk that other countries may follow their lead?
This introductory text explores the theory of social choice. Social choice theory provides an analysis of collective decision making. The main aim of the book is to introduce students to the various methods of aggregating the preferences of all members of a given society into some social or collective preference. Written as a primer suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduates, this text will act as an important starting point for students grappling with the complexities of social choice theory. With all new chapter exercises this rigorous yet accessible primer avoids the use of technical language and provides an up-to-date discussion of this rapidly developing field.

This book is a major new contribution to decision theory, focusing on the question of when it is rational to accept scientific theories. The author examines both Bayesian decision theory and confirmation theory, refining and elaborating the views of Ramsey and Savage. He argues that the most solid foundation for confirmation theory is to be found in decision theory, and he provides a decision-theoretic derivation of principles for how many probabilities should be revised over time. Professor Maher defines a notion of accepting a hypothesis, and then shows that it is not reducible to probability and that it is needed to deal with some important questions in the philosophy of science. A Bayesian decision-theoretic account of rational acceptance is provided together with a proof of the foundations for this theory. A final chapter shows how this account can be used to cast light on such vexing issues as verisimilitude and scientific realism.

This book defends the view that any adequate account of rational decision making must take a decision maker's beliefs about causal relations into account. The early chapters of the book introduce the non-specialist to the rudiments of expected utility theory. The major technical advance offered by the book is a 'representation theorem' that shows that both causal decision theory and its main rival, Richard Jeffrey's logic of decision, are both instances of a more general conditional decision theory. The book solves a long-standing problem for Jeffrey's theory by showing for the first time how to obtain a unique utility and probability representation for preferences and judgements of comparative likelihood. The book also contains a major new discussion of what it means to suppose that some event occurs or that some proposition is true. The most complete and robust defence of causal decision theory available.

Prospect Theory: For Risk and Ambiguity provides the first comprehensive and accessible textbook treatment of the way decisions are made both when we have the statistical probabilities associated with uncertain future events (risk) and when we lack them (ambiguity). The book presents models, primarily prospect theory, that are both tractable and psychologically realistic. A method of presentation is chosen that makes the empirical meaning of each theoretical model completely transparent. Prospect theory has many applications in a wide variety of disciplines. The material in the book has been carefully organized to allow readers to select pathways through the book relevant to their own interests. With numerous exercises and worked examples, the book is ideally suited to the needs of students taking courses in decision theory in economics, mathematics, finance, psychology, management science, health, computer science, Bayesian statistics, and engineering.