This book examines issues related to the alignment of business strategies and analytics. Vast amounts of data are being generated, collected, stored, processed, analyzed, distributed and used at an ever-increasing rate by organizations. Simultaneously, managers must rapidly and thoroughly understand the factors driving their business. Business Analytics is an interactive process of analyzing and exploring enterprise data to find valuable insights that can be exploited for competitive advantage. However, to gain this advantage, organizations need to create a sophisticated analytical climate within which strategic decisions are made. As a result, there is a growing awareness that alignment among business strategies, business structures, and analytics are critical to effectively develop and deploy techniques to enhance an organization's decision-making capability. In the past, the relevance and usefulness of academic research in the area of alignment is often questioned by practitioners, but this book seeks to bridge this gap. Aligning Business Strategies and Analytics: Bridging Between Theory and Practice is comprised of twelve chapters, divided into three sections. The book begins by introducing business analytics and the current gap between academic training and the needs within the business community. Chapters 2 - 5 examines how the use of cognitive computing improves financial advice, how technology is accelerating the growth of the financial advising industry, explores the application of advanced analytics to various facets of the industry and provides the context for analytics in practice. Chapters 6 - 9 offers real-world examples of how project management professionals tackle big-data challenges, explores the application of agile methodologies, discusses the operational benefits that can be gained by implementing real-time, and a case study on human capital analytics. Chapters 10 - 11 reviews the opportunities and potential shortfall and highlights how new media marketing and analytics fostered new insights. Finally the book concludes with a look at how data and analytics are playing a revolutionary role in strategy development in the chemical industry.

The contributions to this volume aim to stimulate discussion about the role of assessment in the learning experiences of students in music and other creative and performing arts settings. The articles offer insights on how assessment can be employed in the learning setting to enhance outcomes for students both during their studies at higher education institutions and after graduation. An international group of leading researchers offers an exciting array of papers that focus on the practice of assessment in music, particularly in higher education settings. Contributions reflect on self-, peer- and alternative assessment practices in this environment. There is a particular emphasis on the alignment between assessment, curriculum structure and pedagogy.

The contributions to this volume aim to stimulate discussion about the role of assessment in the learning experiences of students in music and other creative and performing arts settings. The articles offer insights on how assessment can be employed in the learning setting to enhance outcomes for students both during their studies at higher education institutions and after graduation. An international group of leading researchers offers an exciting array of papers that focus on the practice of assessment in music, particularly in higher education settings. Contributions reflect on self-, peer- and alternative assessment practices in this environment. There is a particular emphasis on the alignment between assessment, curriculum structure and pedagogy.

"Since singing is so good a thing,I wish all men would learne to sing" (William Byrd, 1588) Over the centuries, there has been reluctance among boys and men to become involved in some forms of singing. Perspectives on Males and Singing tackles this conundrum head-on as the first academic volume to bring together leading thinkers and practitioners who share their insights on the involvement of males in singing. The authors share research that analyzes the axiomatic male disinclination to sing, and give strategies designed to engage males more successfully in performing vocal music emphasizing the many positive effects it can have on their lives. Inspired by a meeting at the Australian symposium 'Boys and Voices', which focused on the engagement of boys in singing, the volume includes contributions from leading authorities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Europe.

This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Design, Specification, and Verification of Interactive Systems, DSV-IS 2005. The 20 revised full papers, 1 keynote paper, and 4 summaries of group discussions are organized in topical sections on teams and groups, sketches and templates, away from the desktop, migration and mobility, analysis tools, model-based design processes and tools, and group discussions.

An increasing recognition of the role of the human-system interface is leading to new extensions and styles of specification. Techniques are being developed that facilitate the expression of user-oriented requirements and the refinement and checking of specifications of interactive systems. This book reflects the state of the art in this important area and also contains a summary of working group discussions about how the various techniques represented might be applied to a common case study.

This book examines issues related to the alignment of business strategies and analytics. Vast amounts of data are being generated, collected, stored, processed, analyzed, distributed and used at an ever-increasing rate by organizations. Simultaneously, managers must rapidly and thoroughly understand the factors driving their business. Business Analytics is an interactive process of analyzing and exploring enterprise data to find valuable insights that can be exploited for competitive advantage. However, to gain this advantage, organizations need to create a sophisticated analytical climate within which strategic decisions are made. As a result, there is a growing awareness that alignment among business strategies, business structures, and analytics are critical to effectively develop and deploy techniques to enhance an organization's decision-making capability. In the past, the relevance and usefulness of academic research in the area of alignment is often questioned by practitioners, but this book seeks to bridge this gap. Aligning Business Strategies and Analytics: Bridging Between Theory and Practice is comprised of twelve chapters, divided into three sections. The book begins by introducing business analytics and the current gap between academic training and the needs within the business community. Chapters 2 - 5 examines how the use of cognitive computing improves financial advice, how technology is accelerating the growth of the financial advising industry, explores the application of advanced analytics to various facets of the industry and provides the context for analytics in practice. Chapters 6 - 9 offers real-world examples of how project management professionals tackle big-data challenges, explores the application of agile methodologies, discusses the operational benefits that can be gained by implementing real-time, and a case study on human capital analytics. Chapters 10 - 11 reviews the opportunities and potential shortfall and highlights how new media marketing and analytics fostered new insights. Finally the book concludes with a look at how data and analytics are playing a revolutionary role in strategy development in the chemical industry.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th IFIP WG 11.11 International Conference, IFIPTM 2012, held in Surat, India, in May 2012. The 12 revised full papers presented together with 8 short papers and the abstracts of 4 keynote talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 51 submissions. Building on the traditions inherited from the iTrust and previous IFIPTM conferences, IFIPTM 2012 is a multi-disciplinary conference focusing on areas such as: trust models, social, economic and behavioural aspects of trust, trust in networks, mobile systems and cloud computation, privacy, reputation systems, and identity management.

""Since singing is so good a thing, I wish all men would learne to sing"" (William Byrd, 1588)

Over the centuries, there has been reluctance among boys and men to become involved in some forms of singing. "Perspectives on Males and Singing" tackles this conundrum head-on as the first academic volume to bring together leading thinkers and practitioners who share their insights on the involvement of males in singing. The authors share research that analyzes the axiomatic male disinclination to sing, and give strategies designed to engage males more successfully in performing vocal music emphasizing the many positive effects it can have on their lives.

Inspired by a meeting at the Australian symposium 'Boys and Voices', which focused on the engagement of boys in singing, the volume includes contributions from leading authorities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and Europe.