The "Internal Audit Handbook" is a comprehensive, up-to-date presentation of the tasks and challenges facing internal audit. The handbook is based on the audit work of SAPA(R)'s global internal audit department, which obtained the highest score available, "Generally Conforms," during a quality assessment review performed by the Institute of Internal Auditors. It presents the Audit Roadmap, the process model of internal auditing developed at SAPA(R), describing all stages of an audit. The in-depth description provides information on issues such as the identification of audit fields, the annual audit planning, the organization and execution of audits as well as reporting and follow-up. The handbook also discusses management-related subjects, e.g. the organizational structure of an internal audit department. Separate chapters are dedicated to special topics like IT or SOX audits. The book also includes a CD for computer-based learning containing templates to put specific elements of theory into practice. Since the handbook is based on practical experience and gives numerous examples from audit practice it may serve as a guide to internal auditing for persons new in the field as well as provide experienced internal audit professionals with new insights.

Much discussion of morality presupposes that moral judgments are always, at bottom, arbitrary. Moral scepticism, or at least moral relativism, has become common currency among the liberally educated. This remains the case even while political crises become intractable, and it is increasingly apparent that the scope of public policy formulated with no reference to moral justification is extremely limited. The thesis of On Justifying Moral Judgments insists, on the contrary, that rigorous justifications are possible for moral judgments. Crucially, Becker argues for the coordination of the three main approaches to moral theory: axiology, deontology, and agent morality. A pluralistic account of the concept of value is expounded, and a solution to the problem of ultimate justification is suggested. Analyses of valuation, evaluation, the 'is-ought' issue, and the concepts of obligation, responsibility and the good person are all incorporated into the main line of argument.

Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States and other industrialized nations. Acute myocardial infarction accounts for a majority of these deaths, approaching 750,000 yearly. Thrombolytic therapy has revolutionized the treatment of myocardial infarction, saving lives to a greater extent than any treatment developed to date. The identification of patients best suited for thrombolytic therapy has been a challenging task, as has the ideal adjuvant strategy. Further, the noninvasic diagnosis of treatment successes and failures, as well as the expeditious triaging of patients requiring mechanical/surgical revascularization have been difficult to define, but progress has been made recently. The emergence of information vital for patient care has appeared at an extraordinary pace, with hundreds of articles being published yearly. Unfortunately, a resource devoted to the area of thrombolysis does not exist, making the dissemination of information to physicians, scientists and health care providers problematic. The Modern Era of Coronary Thrombolysis is designed to bring the medical and scientific communities up to date. It will serve as a foundation for future investigation, as well as a resource which can be referred to for many years to come.

Proceedings of a workshop sponsored by the European Community and organized in Brussels, Belgium, October 1988 by the U. of Louvain Medical School, discuss problems related to the study of receptors and energy metabolism, particularly in relationship with the compartmental analysis and the modelling

Much discussion of morality presupposes that moral judgments are always, at bottom, arbitrary. Moral scepticism, or at least moral relativism, has become common currency among the liberally educated. This remains the case even while political crises become intractable, and it is increasingly apparent that the scope of public policy formulated with no reference to moral justification is extremely limited. The thesis of On Justifying Moral Judgments insists, on the contrary, that rigorous justifications are possible for moral judgments. Crucially, Becker argues for the coordination of the three main approaches to moral theory: axiology, deontology, and agent morality. A pluralistic account of the concept of value is expounded, and a solution to the problem of ultimate justification is suggested. Analyses of valuation, evaluation, the 'is-ought' issue, and the concepts of obligation, responsibility and the good person are all incorporated into the main line of argument.

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the philosopher's theory and its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date.

Property Rights: Philosophic Foundations, first published in 1977, comprehensively examines the general justifications for systems of private property rights, and discusses with great clarity the major arguments as to the rights and responsibilities of property ownership. In particular, the arguments that hold that there are natural rights derived from first occupancy, labour, utility, liberty and virtue are considered, as are the standard anti-property arguments based on disutility, virtue and inequality, and the belief that justice in distribution must take precedence over private ownership. Lawrence Becker goes on to contend that there are four sound lines of argument for private property that, together with what is sound in the anti-property arguments, must be co-ordinated to form the foundations of a new theory. He therefore expounds a concise but sophisticated theory of property that is relevant to the modern world, and concludes by indicating some of the implications of his theory.

This cutting-edge, multidisciplinary Handbook comprises specially commissioned contributions surveying state-of-the-art research on the concept of organizational routines. An authoritative overview of the concept of organizational routines and its contributions to our understanding of organizations is presented. To identify those contributions, the role of organizational routines in such processes as organizational learning, performance feedback, and organizational memory is discussed. To identify how the concept can contribute to different disciplinary fields, the expert authors review applications across a range of fields including political science, sociology, and accounting. Two chapters on research methods provide expert advice on the endeavour of experimental studies and empirical field studies of organizational routines. Overall, this Handbook contains articles that identify the role of organizational routines in processes underlying the stability and change of organizations, show how the concept has been applied in different disciplinary fields, and discuss methods for carrying out empirical research using the organizational routines concept. Because of the importance issues such as the stability and change of organizations have in organization theory and strategy, this Handbook will appeal to scholars and students in business and management, in particular in organization theory, organization behaviour, and strategic management.

This cutting-edge, multidisciplinary Handbook comprises specially commissioned contributions surveying state-of-the-art research on the concept of organizational routines. An authoritative overview of the concept of organizational routines and its contributions to our understanding of organizations is presented. To identify those contributions, the role of organizational routines in such processes as organizational learning, performance feedback, and organizational memory is discussed. To identify how the concept can contribute to different disciplinary fields, the expert authors review applications across a range of fields including political science, sociology, and accounting. Two chapters on research methods provide expert advice on the endeavour of experimental studies and empirical field studies of organizational routines. Overall, this Handbook contains articles that identify the role of organizational routines in processes underlying the stability and change of organizations, show how the concept has been applied in different disciplinary fields, and discuss methods for carrying out empirical research using the organizational routines concept. Because of the importance issues such as the stability and change of organizations have in organization theory and strategy, this Handbook will appeal to scholars and students in business and management, in particular in organization theory, organization behaviour, and strategic management.

A collection of essays examining how philosophers in the Western tradition have viewed and written about children through the ages. The Philospoher's Child is an edited collection of 9 contemporary essays (7 new works, 2 revised from previously published work), each of which examines the views of a different philosopher (Socrates, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Mill, Wittgenstein, Rawls, and Firestone) on the topic of children. Each of the contributors to this groundbreaking volume is a specialist in the area of the philosopher he or she considers and offers to the reader both the opportunity to review the thoughts of these important thinkers on a subject that is fast becoming an issue of great urgency and the chance to those thoughts in a critical context.

What would stoic ethics be like today if stoicism had survived as a systematic approach to ethical theory, and if it had coped successfully with the challenges of modern philosophy and experimental science? What would stoic ethics be like today if stoicism had survived as a systematic approach to ethical theory, if it had coped successfully with the challenges of modern philosophy and experimental science? A New Stoicism proposes an answer to that question, offered from within the stoic tradition but without the metaphysical and psychological assumptions that modern philosophy and science have abandoned. Lawrence Becker argues that a secular version of the stoic ethical project, based on contemporary cosmology and developmental psychology, provides the basis for a sophisticated form of ethical naturalism, in which virtually all the hard doctrines of the ancient Stoics can be clearly restated and defended. Becker argues, in keeping with the ancients, that virtue is one thing, not many; that it, and not happiness, is the proper end of all activity; that it alone is good, all other things being merely rank-ordered relative to each other for the sake of the good; and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Moreover, he rejects the popular caricature of the stoic as a grave figure, emotionally detached and capable mainly of endurance, resignation, and coping with pain. To the contrary, he holds that while stoic sages are able to endure the extremes of human suffering, they do not have to sacrifice joy to have that ability, and he seeks to turn our attention from the familiar, therapeutic part of stoic moral training to a reconsideration of its theoretical foundations.

The tendency to reciprocate - to return good for good and evil for evil - is a potent force in human life, and the concept of reciprocity is closely connected to fundamental notions of 'justice', 'obligation' or 'duty', 'gratitude' and 'equality'. In Reciprocity, first published in 1986, Lawrence Becker presents a sustained argument about reciprocity, beginning with the strategy for developing a moral theory of the virtues. He considers the concept of reciprocity in detail, contending that it is a basic virtue that provides the basis for parental authority, obligations to future generations, and obedience to law. Throughout the first two parts of the book, Becker intersperses short pieces of his own narrative fiction to enrich reflection on the philosophical arguments. The final part is devoted to extensive bibliographical essays, ranging over anthropology, psychology, political theory and law, as well as the relevant ethics and political philosophy.

Property Rights: Philosophic Foundations, first published in 1977, comprehensively examines the general justifications for systems of private property rights, and discusses with great clarity the major arguments as to the rights and responsibilities of property ownership. In particular, the arguments that hold that there are natural rights derived from first occupancy, labour, utility, liberty and virtue are considered, as are the standard anti-property arguments based on disutility, virtue and inequality, and the belief that justice in distribution must take precedence over private ownership. Lawrence Becker goes on to contend that there are four sound lines of argument for private property that, together with what is sound in the anti-property arguments, must be co-ordinated to form the foundations of a new theory. He therefore expounds a concise but sophisticated theory of property that is relevant to the modern world, and concludes by indicating some of the implications of his theory.

Lawrence C. Becker introduces an unconventional set of background ideas for future philosophical work on normative theories of basic justice. The organizing concept is habilitation -- the process of equipping a person or thing with functional abilities or capacities. The specific proposals drawn from the concept of habilitation are independent of any particular set of distributive principles. The result is a framework for theory that includes a metric for the pursuit of basic justice, but not a normative theory of it.
The basic idea is that receiving and providing habilitation is a lifelong necessity for human beings, from their nearly helpless newborn state through their struggles to survive and thrive thereafter, even into the most severe diminishments of old age. This lifelong human necessity underlies all questions about basic justice, and the possibilities for habilitation define the circumstances under which those questions arise.
Focusing on the circumstances of habilitation calls attention to the central role of physical and psychological health. Without basic good health in both domains, it is not possible to cope with the habilitative demands of one's physical and psychological endowments, and one's physical and social environments. And for human beings, a particular aspect of human health effectively sums up these matters: namely human agency; the nature and extent of the ability to act effectively.
The book proposes, specifically, that normative theories of basic justice adopt the habilitation framework. What then appears to follow is that the most plausible comprehensive metric for assessing progress toward basic justice will be the level and distribution of basic good health. Moreover, achieving robustly healthy agency will be the most plausible tactical target for making progress toward basic justice -- no matter what one's favored distributive principles might be.

The tendency to reciprocate - to return good for good and evil for evil - is a potent force in human life, and the concept of reciprocity is closely connected to fundamental notions of 'justice', 'obligation' or 'duty', 'gratitude' and 'equality'. In Reciprocity, first published in 1986, Lawrence Becker presents a sustained argument about reciprocity, beginning with the strategy for developing a moral theory of the virtues. He considers the concept of reciprocity in detail, contending that it is a basic virtue that provides the basis for parental authority, obligations to future generations, and obedience to law. Throughout the first two parts of the book, Becker intersperses short pieces of his own narrative fiction to enrich reflection on the philosophical arguments. The final part is devoted to extensive bibliographical essays, ranging over anthropology, psychology, political theory and law, as well as the relevant ethics and political philosophy.

Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States and other industrialized nations. Acute myocardial infarction accounts for a majority of these deaths, approaching 750,000 yearly. Thrombolytic therapy has revolutionized the treatment of myocardial infarction, saving lives to a greater extent than any treatment developed to date. The identification of patients best suited for thrombolytic therapy has been a challenging task, as has the ideal adjuvant strategy. Further, the noninvasic diagnosis of treatment successes and failures, as well as the expeditious triaging of patients requiring mechanical/surgical revascularization have been difficult to define, but progress has been made recently. The emergence of information vital for patient care has appeared at an extraordinary pace, with hundreds of articles being published yearly. Unfortunately, a resource devoted to the area of thrombolysis does not exist, making the dissemination of information to physicians, scientists and health care providers problematic. The Modern Era of Coronary Thrombolysis is designed to bring the medical and scientific communities up to date. It will serve as a foundation for future investigation, as well as a resource which can be referred to for many years to come.

Thrombotic disorders of the circulatory system represent the leading cause of morbidity, motality, and health care expenditure in the United States. Fibrinolytic and Antithrombotic Therapy provides a practical, evidence-based approach to the management of thrombotic disorders for all clinicians involved in the care of patients with these disorders. It provides not only vital conceptual information on fibrinolytic and antithrombotic therapy, but also the means to apply it to everyday decision making and patient care. Focusing on managment guidelines and critical pathways, the text stresses practicality and usability. It will be a valuable resource for the wide range of clinicians involved in the care of patients with these disorders, including cardiologists, emergency physicians, primary care physicians, hematologists, neurologists, intensivists, pharmacists, and nurse practitioners.
The origins of mammalian blood coagulation can be traced back over 400 million years. Despite its long history, it is only within the past century that this complex and pivotal teleologic system has begun to be understood. Most recently, the intricacies of hemostasis and pahtologic thrombosis have come to light, leading the way toward new, more effective, and safer treatment modalities.
The Second Edition of Fibrinolytic and Antithrombotic Therapy, even more concise and clinically relevant than the First, provides vital, evidence-based information on management of patients with arterial and venous thrombotic disorders. Since the First Edition, the text has been expanded to cover the evolving topics of atherothrombosis, thrombocardiology, hematologic/thrombophilic conditions, and vascular medicine. Itincludes up-to-date guidelines for antithrombotic and fibrinolytic therapy, and offers concise summaries of current "standards of care." Chapters are dedicated to discussions of patient-specific therapeutics and to the importance of genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics in defining genotype-phenotype relationships, while throughout the book coagulation, inflammation, and vascular medicine are newly examined as elements in an intricatley-linked triad of biochemical and cellular based phenomenology.

This book showcases advanced empirical research that applies the concept of organizational routines to understanding organizations and how they change and evolve. The contributions gathered in the book cover qualitative, quantitative, and archival methods for empirical research applying the concept of organizational routines. Specific issues highlighted include the use of event-sequence methods in the analysis of organizational routines, the impact of standard operating procedures on recurrent behaviour patterns, and the stability, resilience, and change of organizational routines. The book thus provides an overview of different empirical methods applied to study organizational routines, and of their prerequisites, analytical power, and contribution. This comprehensive book will be of great interest to scholars and postgraduate students in the fields of organization theory, strategy, and organization behaviour. Researchers in organization, management and economic science, organizational change and evolutionary theories will also find this book invaluable.