In this extensively revised fourth edition textbook, authors Vladimir Pucik, Ingmar Bjoerkman, Paul Evans and Gunter Stahl take a people management and organizational perspective on the complex issues involved in successfully managing today's multinational firms. Taking account of contemporary business challenges of digitalization, inclusion, and sustainability, The Global Challenge explores how international strategies are executed through people management. Key Features: Practical examples from leading and emerging multinational firms from around the world Connected yet self-contained chapters to be used as teaching material in courses and programs Critical insights provided by a team of scholars with extensive teaching, research, and consulting experience worldwide Focus on topical issues such as mechanisms of cross-border control and coordination, virtual work and collaboration, diversity and inclusion, management of knowledge and innovation, and the role of people management in tackling societal problems and global sustainability challenges Balancing thoroughly updated case studies with the latest academic research, this cutting-edge fourth edition textbook will be an invaluable resource for students enrolled in MBA, EMBA, and Master's programs worldwide. Executives, managers, and HR professionals in multinational companies will also benefit from its examination of challenges and contradictions that firms confront when operating across borders.

Sci-fi disaster thriller filmed in 3D for theatrical release. In the near future invisible alien invaders have seized control of the world's major cities, seemingly intent on sucking dry any source of electrical energy. In Moscow a handful of young survivors, including Luke (Emile Hirsch) and Holly (Olivia Thirlby), struggle to get to grips with this unseen enemy and soon find themselves locked in a desperate fight, not only for their own lives but for the future of humanity itself.

In this extensively revised fourth edition textbook, authors Vladimir Pucik, Ingmar Bjoerkman, Paul Evans and Gunter Stahl take a people management and organizational perspective on the complex issues involved in successfully managing today's multinational firms. Taking account of contemporary business challenges of digitalization, inclusion, and sustainability, The Global Challenge explores how international strategies are executed through people management. Key Features: Practical examples from leading and emerging multinational firms from around the world Connected yet self-contained chapters to be used as teaching material in courses and programs Critical insights provided by a team of scholars with extensive teaching, research, and consulting experience worldwide Focus on topical issues such as mechanisms of cross-border control and coordination, virtual work and collaboration, diversity and inclusion, management of knowledge and innovation, and the role of people management in tackling societal problems and global sustainability challenges Balancing thoroughly updated case studies with the latest academic research, this cutting-edge fourth edition textbook will be an invaluable resource for students enrolled in MBA, EMBA, and Master's programs worldwide. Executives, managers, and HR professionals in multinational companies will also benefit from its examination of challenges and contradictions that firms confront when operating across borders.

Vladimir Nabakov's shocking masterpiece, now in a beautifully designed clothbound edition 'Lolita is comedy, subversive yet divine' Martin Amis Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets'. Is he in love or insane? A tortured soul or a monster? Humbert Humbert's seduction is one of many dimensions in Nabokov's dizzying masterpiece, which is suffused with a savage humour and rich, elaborate verbal textures. Filmed by Stanley Kubrick in 1962 starring James Mason and Peter Sellers, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne starring Jeremy Irons and Melanie Griffith, Lolita has lost none of its power to shock and awe.

A new investigation, based on previously unseen KGB documents, reveals the startling truth behind Stalin's last great conspiracy.

On January 13, 1953, a stunned world learned that a vast conspiracy had been unmasked among Jewish doctors in the USSR to murder Kremlin leaders. Mass arrests quickly followed. The Doctors' Plot, as this alleged scheme came to be called, was Stalin's last crime.

In the fifty years since Stalin's death many myths have grown up about the Doctors' Plot. Did Stalin himself invent the conspiracy against the Jewish doctors or was it engineered by subordinates who wished to eliminate Kremlin rivals? Did Stalin intend a purge of all Jews from Moscow, Leningrad, and other major cities, which might lead to a Soviet Holocaust? How was this plot related to the cold war then dividing Europe, and the hot war in Korea? Finally, was the Doctors' Plot connected with Stalin's fortuitous death?

Brent and Naumov have explored an astounding arra of previously unknown, top-secret documents from the KGB, the presidential archives, and other state and party archives in order to probe the mechanism of on of Stalin's greatest intrigues -- and to tell for the first time the incredible full story of the Doctors' Plot.

One windy day a little boy happens upon a large black hat, lying in the street. When he tries it on, he becomes a whole host of different characters he's always wanted to be: a soldier marching through the puddles, a cowboy galloping on his steed, a bandit fleeing in the night, or a ringleader at a circus. But when the owner comes to claim his hat, the little boy finds the March Wind before him. Is this part of his imagination too? Vladimir Bobri's timeless illustrations bring to life a magical childhood world in a captivating story about make-believe and the transformative power of the elements.

This book analyses the European Union’s (EU) approach to peacebuilding in its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions, and explores how this approach impacts the EU’s role in international conflict management. Peacebuilding carried out through CSDP instruments has become central to the self-conception of the EU as an actor in international conflict management. EU missions and operations have, for the most part, been deployed to promote peacebuilding efforts in post-conflict situations, in particular through capacity-building, reforms and rebuilding of state structures. This book focuses explicitly on the peacebuilding dimension of the CSDP while exploring why and how the EU has adopted peacebuilding in its CSDP actions as a norm and a practice. It analyses how peacebuilding in EU missions is conceptualised, designed, governed and implemented. The book examines the extent to which EU missions and operations reflect a normative and practical commitment of the EU to peacebuilding – that is to say, the extent to which CSDP instruments have been shaped by international peacebuilding norms and EU foreign policy. Drawing on empirical insights from decision- and policymaking processes in Brussels as well as from missions in Mali and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this book offers critical perspectives on the EU’s role as an international peacebuilding actor. This book will be of much interest to students of European security, EU policy, peace and conflict studies, security studies and international relations.

Political Institutions and Development challenges the cliche that 'good institutions' are essential for sustainable socio-economic development by focusing on the need to adapt potential solutions to local conditions. The authors argue that there is no one optimal institutional design that can be successfully applied to any country. The macro- and micro-level studies contained in this book demonstrate that institutions are highly context-dependent and time-sensitive and must be tailored to local conditions. Specifically, law and order, effective governance, ethnic sensitivity, a supporting political culture, civil rights, and individual opportunities to participate in decision-making are also necessary. With its global perspective, this book explores the relationship between political institutions and development from such diverse regions as the Commonwealth of Independent States, East and South Asia, and Latin America. This book will appeal to scholars and researchers in political science, economics, political economy, development studies and globalization. It will also find a wider audience amongst policymakers, development agencies and policy communities throughout the world.

Between the 1850s and World War I, about one million North Caucasian Muslims sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. This resettlement of Muslim refugees from Russia changed the Ottoman state. Circassians, Chechens, Dagestanis, and others established hundreds of refugee villages throughout the Ottoman Balkans, Anatolia, and the Levant. Most villages still exist today, including what is now the city of Amman. Muslim refugee resettlement reinvigorated regional economies, but also intensified competition over land and, at times, precipitated sectarian tensions, setting in motion fundamental shifts in the borderlands of the Russian and Ottoman empires. Empire of Refugees reframes late Ottoman history through mass displacement and reveals the origins of refugee resettlement in the modern Middle East. Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky offers a historiographical corrective: the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire created a refugee regime, predating refugee systems set up by the League of Nations and the United Nations. Grounded in archival research in over twenty public and private archives across ten countries, this book contests the boundaries typically assumed between forced and voluntary migration, and refugees and immigrants, rewriting the history of Muslim migration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

This book is an introduction to the topic of integrated power management systems. More specifically, it targets the battery powered systems on a chip that provide different functions such as wireless connectivity, sensing (e.g. temperature, pressure, movement), localization, processing, and more. Power management is a crucial part of such systems, as they must provide different power supplies, tailored to the requirements of each sub-block, and must maintain high efficiency in order to allow for a long battery life. The book covers the fundamental principles and guidelines needed to start the design of an integrated power management system, and an overview of practical techniques used in state-of-the-art implementations. Technical topics include: Low-dropout regulators (LDO) Fundamental analysis and design techniques Overview of modern techniques Switching converters Inductive and capacitive DC–DC converters Steady state efficiency optimization Control techniques Low-power techniques Auxiliary circuits and system integration Voltage and current references Clock generators System interface. It is ideal for fresh undergraduate and graduate students starting their careers, but also useful for experienced electronics engineers that are new to the power management domain and power electronics.

Who is this Vladimir Putin? Who is this man who suddenly--overnight and without warning--was handed the reigns of power to one of the most complex, formidable, and volatile countries in the world? How can we trust him if we don't know him?
"First Person" is an intimate, candid portrait of the man who holds the future of Russia in his grip. An extraordinary compilation of over 24 hours of in-depth interviews and remarkable photographs, it delves deep into Putin's KGB past and explores his meteoric rise to power. No Russian leader has ever subjected himself to this kind of public examination of his life and views. Both as a spy and as a virtual political unknown until selected by Boris Yeltsin to be Prime Minister, Putin has been regarded as man of mystery. Now, the curtain lifts to reveal a remarkable life of struggles and successes. Putin's life story is of major importance to the world.

Vector algebra is a particularly weak point in undergraduate mathematics but seminal to understanding more advanced algebra topics. The book is meant as a primary book but might also be used as a supplement to courses in linear algebra and multivariable or vector calculus. There are no direct, current competitors at this level (undergraduate)

This textbook showcases the rapidly developing field of materials optics. It is aimed at a broad audience as the readers require only university entry level knowledge of physics, chemistry, and optics. It overviews the basics of optical engineering and the typical and widely used applications of materials optics, with the first general chapters corresponding to the standard university courses, targeting bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics. The next few chapters present the modern developments in materials optics, such as nano-plasmonics, nano-photonics, and optical properties of nano-sized materials, intended for readers familiar with the basic elements of quantum mechanics. Some more specialized chapters address recent developments in fields such as optics of solid surfaces, plasma optics, optics of composites, alloys, and metamaterials; optics of anisotropic materials; optics of organic and biological materials; and relativistic effects in optics. The appendices present a more advanced description of selected topics, with important reference materials, subject index, and extended list of publications, as well as numerous examples and problems to better orient readers interested in gaining further knowledge of the subject.

The extraordinary story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, the son of former slaves who fled America to build a life in Tsarist Russia. 'A fascinating tale' Anne Applebaum 'Thoroughly enjoyable' Spectator 'Extraordinary and gripping' Adam Hochschild After the brutal death of his father when he was a teenager, Frederick Thomas fled the stifling racism of the American South and headed for New York City, where he worked as a valet and trained as a singer. Through charisma and cunning, Thomas emigrated to Europe, where his acquired skills as a multilingual maitre d'hôtel allowed him to travel from London to Monte Carlo before settling in Moscow in the glorious days before the 1917 Revolution. There Thomas became a rich and respected nightclub impresario, opening a lavish nightclub called Maxim. With evocative backdrops in Moscow and later in Odessa and Constantinople, where Thomas rebuilt his life after the revolution, The Black Russian is an inspiring story of personal reinvention set in one of history's richest periods.

Microbial Pesticides: Biological Resources, Production and Application provides a concise and accessible introduction on the history of microbial pesticides, their impact on global ecology, human society and economies, as well as a thorough and tangible description of the state-of-the-art technologies available for the production, application, limitations and long-term viability of these bio-products. Information is listed per biological group (i.e., virus, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, microsporidia and microbial metabolites), and is supported by sound scientific data. The book is copiously illustrated, with original pictures clarifying the most common techniques and protocols utilized in microbiological biocontrol technology. Finally, images of all biological active ingredients currently used in commercially produced formulations, as well as laboratory developed formulations, are illustrated and listed in detailed tables for prompt access.

This book integrates Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history into a coherent whole by focusing on the culture, role models, habits and behavior patterns that provide continuity between various political regimes, systems, and rulers from Vladimir Lenin to Vladimir Putin. The unifying theme of all these periods is the central question of identity – how the Russians have defined themselves, their country, and their values. Why did the Bolsheviks try to erase any trace of Old Russia and with what did they try to replace it? Why did Stalin wipe out the kulaks and the old Bolsheviks? What were the political consequences of the Great Patriotic War on the Russians as people? When post-Stalin Russia slowly weakened and gave way to the humanism and Westernization that led to the collapse of the Soviet system, why did the 1990s generate a resurgence of anti-western nationalism? And how to explain the slow and steady break with the West under President Putin? This will be a core textbook for undergraduate and graduate students of Russian and European history, and a valuable text for all those interested in how the Russian past influenced and shaped current politics, and in the international East–West divide in particular.

The monograph is devoted to the description of the kinetics of spontaneous boiling of superheated liquefied gases and their solutions. Experimental results are given on the temperature of accessible superheating, the limits of tensile strength of liquids due to processes of cavitation and the rates of nucleation of classical and quantum liquids. The kinetics of evolution of the gas phase is studied in detail for solutions of cryogenic liquids and gas-saturated fluids. The properties of the critical clusters (bubbles of critical sizes) of the newly evolving gas phase are analyzed for initial states near the equilibrium coexistence curves of liquid and gas, for states near the limits of accessible superheating and for initial states near the respective spinodal curves. Finally, processes of explosive boiling of cryogenic liquids are considered occurring as the result of outflow processes and intensive interactions with high-temperature liquid samples.

From the Contents: Equilibrium, Stability and Metastability Attainable Superheating of One-Component Liquids Nucleation in Solutions of Liquefied Gases Nucleation in Highly Correlated Systems Nucleation Kinetics Near the Absolute Zero Temperature Explosive Boiling-Up of Cryogenic Liquids

Despite the growing importance of the Global Emerging Market (GEM) for the world's business, economies, and politics, it has received a relatively scant amount of academic attention in business and economics courses. This textbook is the first to focus on the GEM and its strategic and economic characteristics.

The Global Emerging Market: Strategic Management and Economics describes the fundamental economic base and trends of the Global Marketplace as well as business and management development for the conditions of Emerging Market countries. Focusing on the formation of a strategic mindset and the decision making process, it explains how to analyze the basic economic factors and the Global Order and classify countries related to this new market of tremendous opportunities. Furthermore, the book includes recommendations on how to develop entry strategies for the GEM, work in it and create efficient management systems.

Features include:

• Extensive tables, charts, and graphs illustrating the strategic considerations of the Global Marketplace and the GEM.
• End-of-chapter study questions
• Practical examples based on the author's involvement in the development of the GEM, from both sides of the international transactions.

This is the ideal guide for current business leaders and students on how to make strategic, symmetric, and asymmetric decisions related to the Global Emerging Market.

Dr. Vladimir Kvint is Professor of Management Systems at LaSalle University (PA) and Head of the Department of Financial Strategy of the Moscow State University's School of Economics. He also has extensive experience workingin the US, Europe and Emerging Market countries, as an executive and advisor for businesses and government leaders.