Nothing is complicated. Some things are just harder to explain. The world of digital money might feel like the Wild West but as blockchain, Bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies enter the mainstream, we re going to need to arm ourselves with some knowledge. Do Bitcoin is a concise guide to all things cryptocurrency, focusing on the first and most dominant: Bitcoin. Written in a jargon-free style by self-taught Bitcoin analyst and advisor, Angelo Morgan-Somers, it takes a first principles approach to explain how we got here, why it matters, and what digital money means for the future. So, if you ve ever found yourself asking: What s an NFT? What are altcoins? Who or what are miners? What s a node? Is anyone in charge...? You ve come to the right place. Do Bitcoin will set you and your business on the right track.?It will reveal Bitcoin and blockchain s potential to revolutionise entire industries. And ultimately, to change the world. Are you ready to go down the rabbit hole?

I carefully curated reader designed to be a core text for philanthropy programmes International and inclusive, incorporating global voices translated into English, in some cases for the first time Focused on the concept, practice and theory of fundraising, with a particular focus on informed and critical decision-making in both the academic and professional fields Contains excepts rather than full pieces for a condensed experience that saves the reader time While designed for courses, its focus on practice and the professionalisation of fundraising will appeal to fundraisers and non-profit sector professionals A rich and varied mixture of pieces ranging from the cutting edge of research through to biographies, autobiographies, journalism and historic sources

The role of asymmetric information in allocation of resources, together with the associated information-revelation process, has long been a central focus of economic research. While the bulk of the literature addresses these is sues within the framework of principal-agent relationship, which essentially reduces the problem to the sole principal's (the sole Stackelberg leader's) optimization problem subject to the agents' (the Stackelberg followers') re sponses, there are recent attempts to extend analysis to other economic setups characterized by different relationships among decision-makers. A notable strand of such attempts is the core analysis of incomplete in formation. Here, there is no Stackelberg-type relationship, and more impor tantly the players can talk to each other for coordinated choice of strategies. See, e.g., Wilson (1978) for a pioneering work; Yannelis (1991) for formula tion of feasibility of a strategy as its measurability; Ichiishi and Idzik (1996) for introduction of Bayesian incentive-compatibility to this strand; Ichiishi, Idzik and Zhao (1994) for information revelation (that is, endogenous deter mination of updated information structures); Ichiishi and Radner (1997) and Ichiishi and Sertel (1998) for studies of a specific model of Chandler's firm in multidivisional form for sharper results; and Vohra (1999) for a recent work. It is a common postulate in these works that every player takes part in design of a mechanism and also in execution of the signed contract."

The purpose of this paper is to incorporate both skewness and kurtosis explicitly through extending Zhang (1994) to provide bounds for the prices of and expected payoffs for options, given the first two moments of skewness and kurtosis. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II - distributions of terminal stock prices with given expected prices, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis under the assumption that the underlying asset price is continuously distributed. Similar to the results given in (1), the bounds derived in this paper depend on the information of the cumulative distribution of the underlying asset. However, it is shown in Section II that for each set of moments, there always exists one semi-parametric upper bound which is independent of the information of any distribution of the underlying asset. This semi-parametric upper bound has the same property as that in the case of the first two moments in Zhang (1994), that is, it is always greater than, or equal to, the distribution dependent bounds.

This book is a thorough, balanced, and insightful study of what is happening and what should be happening in health care financing. Americans want unlimited access to the best care at affordable prices. Fiscal pressures in American health care point in all different directions, like a pile of jackstraws. This important book analyzes how new payment incentives stimulate planned competition or reregulation; and the far-reaching impact these changes have on hospitals, physicians, long-term care facilities, HMOs, public health clinics, and multihospital systems. Tools for survival include better financial planning, productivity improvement, better scheduling systems, and total quality management.

Steven R. Eastaugh begins his book with a general overview of cost management, accounting, product-line selection, and new payment incentives. Part II provides an in-depth survey of fiscal trends in long-term care, managed care, HMOs, and PPOs. Part III analyzes five basic strategies that a provider may consider; with special focus on market analysis, diversification, and pricing. The next part reviews physician payment options, the new Medicare 1992 payment systems for hospitals and physicians, and cost analysis of hospital patient care, research, and education. Part V considers productivity enhancement methods, incentives to assist productivity programs, and the Deming method of total quality management. Part VI focuses on investment, financing, and capital structure decisions in health care institutions and also in large multifacility systems. The last part summarizes major strategies for success in the 1990s, future policy alternatives, and suggests a number of alternative roads to universal entitlement and national health care reform. As Eastaugh suggests in this book, Our health system faces . . . immense opportunity and danger in a reformation on four fronts: access, efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of life. The challenge for providers and managers during this period of unparalleled opportunity is to win a clear victory on all four fronts, and not erode either access or quality in the name of efficiency. The range of coverage in Health Care Finance is extremely wide and detailed--making it essential and useful reading for health care professionals and students alike.

Efficient, compliant management systems pave the road to sustainability through integration and automation

The book addresses the many definitions of sustainability and why CEOs need the links between sustainability, business value, and performance. Business leaders are committed to leading the way, and the book outlines the support of a management system structure and business principles that will drive the accomplishment of their mission. Stakeholder demands on CEOs include many challenges. Investors are assessing companies for financial performance. The shrinking talent pool of employees is looking to work with organizations that support social, environment, and economic operating practices and principles.

Great leaders are those that ask questions, who are creative to drive innovation for growth of their company. The Assess-Reflect-Act section on international business principles defined in the book will ask you as the leader thought provoking questions to stimulate action within your organization to bring people, processes, and technology together for business success.

Leaders need to transition to smart decisions that are data driven. The company's management system structure is important to build a strong framework for business process operations and automation for global competitiveness. Topics include: Business plans vs management systemsManagement system frameworks: standardization, ISO standards: Quality -- ISO 9001, Environment -- ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, Integrated Management SystemsThree Steps for Process Development: Identify, Insure, ImproveFocus for the Organization: Compliance Costs, Best Practices, Strategic PlanningSupport -- Resources: Innovation, Engagement, Succession PlanningData as a Valuable ResourceOperation: Process Risks, Management System Control Plan, E-commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Green Awareness-Eco Design, Automated Controls, Cloud ComputingPerformance Evaluation -- Monitor, Measure, Analyze, Audit, Management ReviewCompetitive Landscape

The constant need to improve internal processes and move toward business sustainability and quality standards is a major stressor for governments and businesses. With one-third of the workforce retiring in the next five to ten years, the need has become more immediate, and the focus has shifted to building a strong framework for business process operations and automation for global competitiveness. This book provides a roadmap to efficient, compliant systems, showing businesses how to build toward sustainability goals and capture key knowledge of the employees involved in the process.

Credit Risk Pricing Models - now in its second edition - gives a deep insight into the latest basic and advanced credit risk modelling techniques covering not only the standard structural, reduced form and hybrid approaches but also showing how these methods can be applied to practice. The text covers a broad range of financial instruments, including all kinds of defaultable fixed and floating rate debt, credit derivatives and collateralised debt obligations.This volume will be a valuable source for the financial community involved in pricing credit linked financial instruments. In addition, the book can be used by students and academics for a comprehensive overview of the most important credit risk modelling issues.

Praise for "Praise for Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics"

"A highly accessible collection of essays on contemporary thinking in performance management. Readers will get excellent overviews on the Balanced Scorecard, strategy maps, incentives, management accounting, activity-based costing, customer lifetime value, and sustainable shareholder value creation."
--Robert S. Kaplan, Harvard Business School; coauthor of "The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action, The Execution Premium," and many other books

"Gary Cokins demonstrates in this book that performance management is not a mysterious black art, but a structured, process-oriented discipline. If you want your performance management system to be a smoothly running analytical machine, read and apply the ideas in this book--it's all you need."
--Thomas H. Davenport, President's Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management, Babson College; coauthor of "Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning"

"Drawing on a deep reservoir of knowledge and experience gained from hundreds of customer engagements around the world, Gary Cokins offers an authoritative examination of the major dimensions of performance management. Cokins not only paints a rich and textured view of the major principles and concepts driving performance management implementations, he offers a nuanced look at the important subtleties that can spell the difference between success and failure. This is an informative and enjoyable text to read "
--Wayne Eckerson, Director of Research, The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI); author of "Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business"

" In this] very insightful book, the view of an integrated performance management framework with a goal to link various operational activities with business strategy is an excellent approach to manage and improve business. Gary's explanation of risk-based performance management, for providing the capability to achieve long-term objectives with reliably calculated risks, is definitely thought provoking."
--Srini Pallia, Global Head and Vice President of Business Technology Services, Wipro Technologies, Bangalore, India

"Gary Cokins is clearly one of the world's thought leaders in the area of performance management, and the need for integrated performance management, improvement and execution is clearly at a premium in these challenging economic times. This book is a must read for CEOs, CFOs, and management accountants around the globe seeking higher levels of sustainable business performance for their stakeholders."
--Jeffrey C. Thomson, President and CEO, Institute of Management Accountants

This 32 volume set reissues key out-of-print titles that will prove invaluable in understanding the current resurgence of economic nationalism. Covering all aspects of international trade policy, and focusing particularly on tariffs and protectionism, this set will be invaluable to the modern student.

Take an in-depth, how-to look at Forex trading using the methods, analysis, and insights of a renowned trader, Raghee Horner.

As the fate of the dollar against foreign currency generates both anxiety and opportunities, currency trading has been drawing much interest and a growing following among traders in the United States. The Forex market is particularly attractive because it trades with no gaps and has unlimited guaranteed stop-losses. The liquidity of the Forex market and worldwide participation makes for more reliable and longer lasting trends as well.

Raghee Horner, legendary not only as a top Forex trader but as a master teacher of trading systems and techniques, draws on her winning tools and methods, including classic charting techniques, in this book. She'll enable you, regardless of your skill level as a trader or investor, to understand how the Forex operates and lays out a blueprint for getting starting in this little-understood but high-potential trading vehicle.

U.S. firms doing business in Germany are succeeding far better than usually reported. Indeed, 14 of the top 1,700 American companies with direct investment in Germany placed among the top 100 German industrial firms in sales in 1994, a fact that made big news in Germany but was never mentioned in the U.S. press. Here now, in one succinct, readable volume, is all of the vital information that American companies, and companies elsewhere, will need to enter and succeed in this lucrative German market. Certainly there are drawbacks, but attorneys James A. Hart and Dieter Schultze-Zeu make clear there are significant advantages as well, and in certain important ways it may be even easier to do business there than in other major industrial countries such as Japan.

The authors look carefully at the scope of U.S.-German business, and then compare the three economic superpowers -- Germany, Japan, and the United States -- in terms of such variables as gross domestic product, economic growth, and industrial production. They review the political, economic, and social considerations that have emerged from the unification of West and East Germany, and show their effects on the ways in which business in Germany is now done. They examine the principle methods of selling to Germany, the impact of the German government and legal system on American businesses. Then they discuss in detail specifics such as the legal forms of business, Germany's accounting and tax laws, and laws relating to product liability, anti-trust, labor, and social security. Also covered are the German banking and accounting systems, stock markets, and the presence of U.S. commercial banks in Germany. Of special interest are case histories of several important U.S. companies doing business there. An exceptionally useful guide for corporate executives, attorneys, and a cogent introduction to the German business environment for students, researchers, and analysts in the academic community.

Using examples from finance and modern warfare to the flocking of birds and the swarming of bacteria, the collected research in this volume demonstrates the common methodological approaches and tools for modeling and simulating collective behavior.

Thetopics presented point toward new and challenging frontiers of applied mathematics, making the volume a useful referencetext forapplied mathematicians, physicists, biologists, and economists involved in the modeling of socio-economic systems."

Praise for EVIDENCE-BASED TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

"In clear language, Aronson demonstrates the theoretical flaws in interpretative technical analysis methodologies, the flawed premises and conclusions of the Efficient Market Hypothesis, and the appropriate techniques for developing and testing technical analysis methods that do have validity. Readers will learn a lot from this book."
--Jack Schwager, author of Market Wizards and the Schwager on Futures book series

"Aronson's explanation of data mining is a must-read for every analyst, and his overall discussion of statistical inference is critical to success. The book is filled with commonsense examples and provides a testing and validation process that saves time, frustration, and money."
--Perry Kaufman, author of New Trading Systems and Methods, Fourth Edition

"This book debunks many of the myths of technical analysis. One should read this book before buying a technical system. The book is a good reference to the literature on the subject with extensive footnotes and bibliography."
--Sandor Straus, Managing Member, Merfin, LLC

"You may not agree with everything David Aronson says in this controversial, but compelling new study. Still, every trader who wants to invest technical analysis with the dignity of a great science should read this discerning account."
--Nelson Freeburg, Editor, Formula Research

"There are illusions of the mind that are every bit as real as optical illusions. Aronson's criticisms of popular forms of technical analysis are right on target."
--Fred Gehm, author of Quantitative Trading and Money Management

Who enjoys statutory preferred creditor status? What justifications exist for jurisdictions to maintain statutes that favour 'priority' creditors over other creditors and contributories? This book examines preferential debts derived from specific legislative provisions applying to corporate insolvency. In exploring the concept of preferential treatment, Statutory Priorities in Corporate Insolvency Law includes chapters that provide a doctrinal, theoretical and historical analysis of who enjoys preferred creditor status. As well as examining the traditional major categories of priorities, this work also identifies potential new categories for priority status such as environmental clean-up costs, international creditors, tort claimants and consumers among other non-consensual creditors. While the study focuses on Australian corporate insolvency law, where appropriate, comparisons are made with other common law jurisdictions, particularly the UK, Canada, New Zealand and the US.

This book introduces readers to the basic concepts of and latest findings in the area of differential equations with uncertain factors. It covers the analytic method and numerical method for solving uncertain differential equations, as well as their applications in the field of finance. Furthermore, the book provides a number of new potential research directions for uncertain differential equation. It will be of interest to researchers, engineers and students in the fields of mathematics, information science, operations research, industrial engineering, computer science, artificial intelligence, automation, economics, and management science.

A fieldwork-based sociological study of how participants in City of London financial markets view the markets in which they work and the market mechanism in general. It is more than a narrow study of financial market participants because it is also an empirical investigation into how ideologies function and it develops a critique of pro-market ideologies such as "Thatcherism". Finally, it is a sociological study into the privileged world of high earners and the wealthy.

The book discusses the mechanisms by which securities are traded, as well as examining economic models of asymmetric information, inventory control, and cost-minimizing trading strategies.

The 1990s saw a rapid rise in the proportion of market value represented by Internet companies. At the peak of the market, the value of US internet stocks alone exceeded $2 trillion, making these stocks nearly as valuable as the entire UK market. However, since March 2000 many internet stock values have declined precipitately. This book establishes a robust cashflow based methodology for internet valuation in relation to strategic issues, and includes compelling and topical case studies of leading players including Amazon.com and NTT DoCoMo.

This book is useful, readable and intelligent survey of the emerging field of behavioral accounting, a field that is doing much to narrow the gap between accounting and behavioral scholars and practitioners.

"Personnel Psychology"

The relatively new field of behavioral accounting relies on the application of behavioral concepts from the social sciences for an understanding of the forces that underlie the accounting environment. Here, Belkaoui presents the first comprehensive survey of behavioral accounting theories and findings, organizing them into a systematic framework for the further study of behavioral accounting issues and questions. The result is a new understanding of the behavioral environment of accounting and a guide to solving practical behavioral problems that result from the preparation and use of accounting information.

As Belkaoui demonstrates, the quality of accounting information is often adversely affected by human perceptions, attitudes, predispositions, and other behavioral characteristics. Belkaoui fully explores the behavioral underpinnings of the problem by examining the behavioral dimensions of a wide range of accounting issues and practices including: contingency approaches to the design of accounting systems; functional and data fixation; the practice of slack; accounting and language; goal setting, participative budgeting and performance; the human resource considerations in public accounting firms; and, finally, cultural determinism in accounting. By offering both a realistic appraisal of the theories behind behavioral accounting and a cogent statement of the questions still left unanswered, Belkaoui makes a major contribution to the ongoing inquiry into the influence of behavioral factors on accounting practice.

This textbook gives a comprehensive introduction to stochastic processes and calculus in the fields of finance and economics, more specifically mathematical finance and time series econometrics. Over the past decades stochastic calculus and processes have gained great importance, because they play a decisive role in the modeling of financial markets and as a basis for modern time series econometrics. Mathematical theory is applied to solve stochastic differential equations and to derive limiting results for statistical inference on nonstationary processes. This introduction is elementary and rigorous at the same time. On the one hand it gives a basic and illustrative presentation of the relevant topics without using many technical derivations. On the other hand many of the procedures are presented at a technically advanced level: for a thorough understanding, they are to be proven. In order to meet both requirements jointly, the present book is equipped with a lot of challenging problems at the end of each chapter as well as with the corresponding detailed solutions. Thus the virtual text - augmented with more than 60 basic examples and 40 illustrative figures - is rather easy to read while a part of the technical arguments is transferred to the exercise problems and their solutions.

Improved understanding of the key role of financial aspects in the growth and development of economic systems is an important aspect of economic analysis. This first textbook on development finance provides a comprehensive coverage of this new area of economics. The book integrates relevant theoretical approaches and their policy applications. A unique perspective combines transaction cost economics and neoclassical economics. The author also treats important policy issues of national and international relevance. The roles of public and private finance, domestic and external finance, short-term and long-term capital flows, sovereign debt management features, country risk and other determinants of foreign direct investments, multilateral official development assistance and development of financial institutions are some of the topics examined in this book.

Bonds are a vital part of the global capital markets and are essential for any investor's portfolio. In this book leading expert Moorad Choudhry demystifies bonds once and for all. This guide explains, in a simple, clear fashion, the importance of bonds and why all private investors should include them as part of their investment strategy. Many bonds offer secure returns at a lower risk than equities. Readers will gain insight into the advantages of holding bonds and why they should always form part of any savings portfolio. Covering, among other topics, government bonds, the yield curve and what drives the market, in an easy, accessible style, this book is a must for anyone who wants to adopt a sound investment strategy.

Kiyosi Ito, the founder of stochastic calculus, is one of the few central figures of the twentieth century mathematics who reshaped the mathematical world. Today stochastic calculus is a central research field with applications in several other mathematical disciplines, for example physics, engineering, biology, economics and finance.

The Abel Symposium 2005 was organized as a tribute to the work of Kiyosi Ito on the occasion of his 90th birthday. Distinguished researchers from all over the world were invited to present the newest developments within the exciting and fast growing field of stochastic analysis. The present volume combines both papers from the invited speakers and contributions by the presenting lecturers.

A special feature is the Memoirs that Kiyoshi Ito wrote for this occasion. These are valuable pages for both young and established researchers in the field.