An exploration of fashion through the ages that asks what our clothing reveals about ourselves and our society.

Dress codes are as old as clothing itself. For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes, a way to maintain political control. Merchants dressing like princes and butchers’ wives wearing gem-encrusted crowns were public enemies in medieval societies structured by social hierarchy and defined by spectacle. In Tudor England, silk, velvet, and fur were reserved for the nobility, and ballooning pants called “trunk hose” could be considered a menace to good order. The Renaissance-era Florentine patriarch Cosimo de Medici captured the power of fashion and dress codes when he remarked, “One can make a gentleman from two yards of red cloth.” Dress codes evolved along with the social and political ideals of the day, but they always reflected struggles for power and status. In the 1700s, South Carolina’s “Negro Act” made it illegal for Black people to dress “above their condition.” In the 1920s, the bobbed hair and form-fitting dresses worn by free-spirited flappers were banned in workplaces throughout the United States, and in the 1940s, the baggy zoot suits favored by Black and Latino men caused riots in cities from coast to coast.

Even in today’s more informal world, dress codes still determine what we wear, when we wear it—and what our clothing means. People lose their jobs for wearing braided hair, long fingernails, large earrings, beards, and tattoos or refusing to wear a suit and tie or make-up and high heels. In some cities, wearing sagging pants is a crime. And even when there are no written rules, implicit dress codes still influence opportunities and social mobility. Silicon Valley CEOs wear t-shirts and flip-flops, setting the tone for an entire industry: women wearing fashionable dresses or high heels face ridicule in the tech world, and some venture capitalists refuse to invest in any company run by someone wearing a suit.

In Dress Codes, law professor and cultural critic Richard Thompson Ford presents a “deeply informative and entertaining” (The New York Times Book Review) history of the laws of fashion from the middle ages to the present day, a walk down history’s red carpet to uncover and examine the canons, mores, and customs of clothing—rules that we often take for granted. After reading Dress Codes, you’ll never think of fashion as superficial again—and getting dressed will never be the same.

Despite the fact that Rubber is one of the world's major commodities, surprispingly little has been written about hte the subject. First published in 1994, The World Rubber Industry seeks to redress this deficiency. It presents information in a clear and accessible manner, with numerous tables and illustrations, and an extensive glossary. This is a comprehensive and definitive analysis of one of the world's major and most essential commodities.

Manufacturing in the UK has an image problem. Although this image problem is more fiction than fact, it nonetheless has an impact on the sector's ability to attract staff, capital, and policy interest. This book redresses this situation by focusing on the real successes of the sector and the strategies used by makers to achieve sustainable results.

Operations management is a set of disciplines that transform raw materials, labor and capital into finished goods and services. These various disciplines are discussed for an intended audience of executives and operations managers who desire to be updated on the current curriculum in business schools. The book emphasizes why Japan has ascended to its dominant position in global commerce largely at the expense of U.S. manufacturers. The intent is to learn lessons from Japanese achievements that can be applied to make U.S. manufacturers more competitive in the global market. Trends in operations management are augmented with new software tools (Evolver and RISKOptimizer) which can solve previously unsolvable problems in scheduling and other operational matters.

Additional material provides a fuller discussion on certain key managerial issues and problem solving. This readable and informative book examines the various disciplines that managers must integrate into their jobs and key workplace practices that enhance a company's competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Most successful organizations recognize Maintenance Parts and Procurement as a critical success factor to Asset Management Excellence and their fundamental supply chain value proposition. This book works as a guide to all the stakeholders that influence the success of their Maintenance Parts Operation and their enterprise's bottom line. Maintenance Parts Management Excellence: A Holistic Anatomy defines the Maintenance Parts Managements role in Asset Management Excellence and expands on the importance of the Parts Inventory Planner role in an organization. It discusses how to create a unique Maintenance Parts Management Strategy for an organization and offers insights on the multiple strategies needed to create and maintain a Maintenance Parts inventory policy. The book also provides an organized overall approach to creating Maintenance Parts Management Excellence in an enterprise. Executives with an organization responsible for the construction, management, and disposal of all assets classes (plant, equipment, IT assets), consultants responsible for assignments associated with optimizing life cycle decisions for clients, maintenance, and reliability professionals within an organization, will benefit from this professional plus book. Upper-level undergraduate engineering students, as well as graduate students of management who focus on operations management and engineering graduate students addressing issues of maintenance and reliability engineering, may also be interested in this book.

Around the world, leading economies are announcing significant progress on climate change. World leaders are queuing up to proclaim their commitment to tackling the climate crisis, pointing to data that shows the progress they have made. Yet the atmosphere is still warming at a record rate, with devastating effects on poverty and precarity in the world's most vulnerable communities. Are we being deceived? Climate change is devastating the planet, and globalisation is hiding it. This book opens our eyes. Carbon colonialism explores the murky practices of outsourcing a country's environmental impact, where emissions and waste are exported from rich countries to poorer ones; a world in which corporations and countries are allowed to maintain a clean, green image while landfills in the world's poorest countries continue to expand, and droughts and floods intensify under the auspices of globalisation, deregulation and economic growth. Taking a wide-ranging, culturally engaged approach to the topic, the book shows how this is not only a technical problem, but a problem of cultural and political systems and structures - from nationalism to economic logic - deeply embedded in our society. -- .

China is certainly doing its best to keep the world mesmerized by its e- nomic achievements. The Chinese economic growth story that begun 30 years ago has in terms of dynamics and duration long since surpassed all those "economic miracles" which have brought Germany, Japan, and the South East Asian Tigers into the top-league of the industrialized world. The rapid expansion of the Chinese economy has gone along with a fu- fledged re-integration of China into the global economic system. In the course of the last 30 years China has become a major player in the global economy and today is on a trajectory towards even greater prominence. In recent years, the Chinese economy seems to have reached an imp- tant threshold line of economic development and global integration. In the first quarter century of reform and global opening, Chinese enterprises have been largely confined to a 'passive' role in the global division of - bor. Foreign enterprises as the proprietors of greatly superior business models, production technologies, management models as well as very competitively established brands have been integrating Chinese players in their value chains and global operations. Lacking the necessary production technologies, products as well as marketing knowledge to successfully - dress OECD-consumers, Chinese enterprises have been hardly able to - ter the global markets without such guidance. Now, this constellation is changing.

Textiles in Transition contributes a valuable new approach to the study of relocation and wage differentials in the U.S. textile industry during the period 1880-1930. The discussion centers on two major themes: the reasons for the timing of the relocation of American textile production from the Northeast to the South and the simultaneous pattern of wage convergence between the two regions. Kane pays particular attention to the role of technological change in textile production and the striking parallels between the 1880-1930 experience and current industry trends.

In 1877, university professor Carl von Linde obtained a patent for his refrigerator from the Imperial Patent Office a patent for something that was not merely an invention, but the result of serious research in the basic laws of physics. Linde went on to found the Linde Company, one of the biggest German Gas and Engineering companies which became one of the models for science based industries. Today, the Linde Group, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, is a global technology company dedicated to gas and engineering, material handling and refrigeration. This book examines the history of this company in the context of the history of technology in industry. MARKET 1: Buyback - Linde AG

An important contribution to the literature of business and international security, this volume takes a two-pronged approach to the study of U.S. manufacturing. McGarrah first provides an in-depth examination of the internal and external factors that have contributed to the decline of U.S. manufacturing capabilities in recent decades, focusing particular attention on U.S. arms procurement and export contracting, the widespread emphasis on short-term profits and cash-flows at the expense of long-term gains, product quality and productivity. McGarrah then proposes a series of internal and government-led reforms that, he argues, would not only contribute to a revival of the competitive position of U.S. manufacturing within the world economy, but also release budget dollars for such projects as rebuilding the U.S. infrastructures for transportation, education, water resources and funding plans for a Marshall Plan revival with Third World nations.

McGarrah begins by demonstrating the importance of manufacturing firms as the pivotal institutions providing for military, economic, political and social security and progress for industrialized and developing societies; also as providers of highly paid, highly skilled jobs not generated by the service industries. He then identifies the internal causes of U.S. manufacturers' decline: the ascendancy of financial and accounting executives over engineering, production and marketing executives; the dominance of a strategy for corporate growth via financial conglomeration and divestiture (making more money for fewer people), instead of making better products, just-in-time, for more people; concentrating more on controlling flows of cash than flows of materials, products and information to serve customers' needs for improvements. Turning to a discussion of external influences, McGarrah argues that the Pentagon's arms procurement and export policies for U.S. military-industrial independence, vis-a-vis other Western democratic allied nations have exacerbated problems of indolence, lost competitiveness and export markets for American manufacturers. Reform from within, McGarrah asserts, can be accomplished if companies spend less time on balance sheet ledger and paper entrepreneurship and pay more attention to democratic-participatory management (less to bureaucracies, hierarchies and special interests) in planning controlling qualities and flows of products to markets. He also advocates greater U.S. allied cooperation in funding, procurement, production and deployment of common conventional weapons. With the savings from such cooperation, the United States could then reduce Federal deficits, finance and operate a civil-industrial-university complex for advanced research and development (patterned after precedents of the U.S. agri-business-university complex), and revive the Marshall Plan to boost manufacturers' exports and enhance political and economic ties with Third World nations.

This textbook draws on the authors' experience gained by teaching courses for engineering students on e.g. vehicle mechanics, vehicle system design, and chassis design; and on their practical experience as engineering designers for vehicle and chassis components at a major automotive company. The book is primarily intended for students of automotive engineering, but also for all technicians and designers working in this field. Other enthusiastic engineers will also find it to be a useful technical guide. The present volume (The Automotive Chassis - Volume 2: System Design) focuses on the automotive chassis as a system, providing readers with the knowledge needed to integrate the individual components described in Volume 1 in a complex system that satisfies customers' expectations. Special emphasis is given to factors influencing system performance, including: - the influence of the powertrain on vehicle performance. Conventional, hybrid and electric powertrains are considered; - factors influencing vehicles' handling performance; - factors influencing vehicles' comfort performance; and - factors influencing vehicles' stability and strategies for accident avoidance (active safety). In addition, this second volume thoroughly covers topics that are usually neglected in other books about the automotive chassis, such as: - the basics of vehicle aerodynamics; - internal combustion engines, electric motors and batteries; and - mathematical modeling tools. This thoroughly revised second edition has been updated to reflect the latest advances in electric and hybrid vehicles, electronic control systems and autonomous driving.

America has recently rediscovered its sweatshops. High profile scandals-from Kathy Lee to Nike-have brought the shocking and substandard conditions of factories to light, causing more Americans to become aware of the relationship between the American consumer and foreign laborer. Focusing on sweatshops located in the United States as well as those abroad whose products are purchased by American consumers, these essays offer a historical perspective on sweatshops and on their role in global migration and economics. They also chronicle efforts to control and eradicate sweatshops and suggest how these campaigns were and remain both national and global.

Structure and Performance of Manufacturing in Kenya explores the factors affecting business and investment decisions by Kenya's formal and informal manufacturing firms. The analysis of panel data provides insights into the effects of the existing business environment and policy changes on enterprise performance in the context of structural adjustment. Firm structure, labor and financial markets, investment behavior, productivity, export performance, firm growth, and the impact of policy reforms and infrastructure problems are also investigated.

Traditional Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have tremendous applications, but their performance can be limited due to the limited processing and communication power of wireless sensor nodes. Cognitive Radio Sensor Networks: Applications, Architectures, and Challenges examines how wireless sensor nodes with cognitive radio capabilities can address these challenges and improve the spectrum utilization. This premier reference work presents a broader picture on the applications, architecture, challenges, and open research directions in the area of WSN research. It serves as a reference book for graduate students in courses on topics such as wireless sensor networks, cognitive radio networks, and emerging wireless technologies.

This book provides the latest models, methods and guidelines for networked enterprises to enhance their competitiveness and move towards innovative high performance and agile industrial systems.In the new global market, competitiveness and economic growth rely greatly on the move toward innovative high performance industrial systems and agile networked enterprises through the creation and consolidation of non-hierarchical manufacturing networks of multi-national SMEs as opposed to networks based on powerful large-scale companies. Network performance can be significantly improved through more harmonious and equitable peer-to-peer inter-enterprise relationships, conforming decentralized and collaborative decision-making models.Traditional hierarchical manufacturing networks are based on centralized models, where some of the actors involved must adapt themselves to the constraints defined by those who are most dominant. Real-world experiences of such models have revealed some major problems due to the centralized vision of the supply chain and the sub-optimal performance of centralized decision-making. For the current highly dynamic markets, this generates major inefficiencies in operation throughout the supply chain.This book collects the latest research regarding non-hierarchical manufacturing networks and provides enterprises with valuable models, methods and guidelines to improve their competitiveness.

Discussing how and by what paths Japan and Korea have built competitive and innovative capital goods sectors, this text examines the role of user firms in shaping the innovation dynamics of capital goods. These firms are represented in this study by car makers in both countries - companies which have involved themselves in the technical and entrepreneurial entry into machine tools along with active investments. The suggested consequence of this is an increased competitive advantage and competence of their specialized suppliers.

Aiming to change the paradigms of traditional management strategies, this work attempts to create an improved platform within the total quality management umbrella for supporting the profit motive by offering hands-on instructions for applying the theory of constraints in the manufacturing system. The book provides updated information in each area discussed.

Reviews the chemical and physical properties, care and treatment of hair, including product development. The book discusses ethnic hair, its appropriate management measures and products; emphasizes manufacturing and sales strategies for domestic and international product viability; surveys instrumental methods for product performance evaluation; presents sensory and market research techniques for optimum consumer satisfaction; and more.

In this book, author Sadao Nomura taps into his decades of experience leading and advising Toyota operations in a wide variety of operations to tell the story of radical improvement at Toyota Logistics & Forklift (TL&F). This book tells in great detail what the author did with TL&F, how they did it, and the dramatic results that ensued. TL&F has long been a global leader in its industry. TL&F is part of Toyota Industries Corporation, which was founded by Toyota Group founder Sakichi Toyoda almost 100 years ago. Sakichi Toyoda is legendary in the Lean community as the originator of the all-important "JIDOKA" pillar of TPS, which ensures 1) built-in quality and 2) respect for people through ensuring that technology works for people rather than the other way around. Although TL&F seemed to be performing well, insiders knew that, as the founding company of the Toyota group, it needed to do better, especially in the quality performance of its global subsidiary operations. But improvement would not be easy in a company that already prided itself in its history as an exemplar in providing highest quality products and services. In 2006, TL&F requested assistance from Sadao Nomura. The initial request was for Mr. Nomura to support quality improvement in three global operations that had become part of TL&F through acquisition: US, Sweden, and France. Improvement was expected at these affiliates, but the dramatic nature of the improvement was not. Further, the improvement activities were so powerful that they were also instituted at the parent operations in Japan. Over a period of almost ten years, the company with the name most associated with product quality experienced quality improvement unparalleled in its history. "Dantotsu" means "extreme," "radical," or "unparalleled."