Luxury products are now seen by a growing number of global consumers as an important and more widely available way of expressing personal aspirations and values. Most consumers of luxury products and services use them as status symbols and symbols of success. However, the definition of success - and the way it is perceived by others - is changing. Many of these successful consumers now want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations. Such products come with a heavy social and environmental cost. Sustainable luxury is about rediscovering the old meaning of luxury - a considered purchase of a beautifully crafted object with built-in social and environmental value. The social entrepreneurs documented in this book highlight the relationship between personal values and sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation in developing and marketing luxury products. The pioneers outline how they have developed inclusive supply chains with poor and vulnerable communities. Their stories prove that luxury need not be a destructive force. Instead, this book opens a window on a world where entrepreneurial pioneers can change the rules of the game.

Luxury products are now seen by a growing number of global consumers as an important and more widely available way of expressing personal aspirations and values. Most consumers of luxury products and services use them as status symbols and symbols of success. However, the definition of success - and the way it is perceived by others - is changing. Many of these successful consumers now want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations. Such products come with a heavy social and environmental cost. Sustainable luxury is about rediscovering the old meaning of luxury - a considered purchase of a beautifully crafted object with built-in social and environmental value.The social entrepreneurs documented in this book highlight the relationship between personal values and sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation in developing and marketing luxury products. The pioneers outline how they have developed inclusive supply chains with poor and vulnerable communities. Their stories prove that luxury need not be a destructive force. Instead, this book opens a window on a world where entrepreneurial pioneers can change the rules of the game.

Discover the passionate positions of this ancient and revered text. The perfect new spice for bored couples, or a sexy surprise for a single's overnight company.

Luxury products are now seen by a growing number of global consumers as an important and more widely available way of expressing personal aspirations and values. Most consumers of luxury products and services use them as status symbols and symbols of success. However, the definition of success - and the way it is perceived by others - is changing. Many of these successful consumers now want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations. Such products come with a heavy social and environmental cost. Sustainable luxury is about rediscovering the old meaning of luxury - a considered purchase of a beautifully crafted object with built-in social and environmental value.The social entrepreneurs documented in this book highlight the relationship between personal values and sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation in developing and marketing luxury products. The pioneers outline how they have developed inclusive supply chains with poor and vulnerable communities. Their stories prove that luxury need not be a destructive force. Instead, this book opens a window on a world where entrepreneurial pioneers can change the rules of the game.

Faculty and staff in higher education are looking for ways to address the deep inequity and systemic racism that pervade our colleges and universities. Pedagogical partnership can be a powerful tool to enhance equity, inclusion, and justice in our classrooms and curricula. These partnerships create opportunities for students from underrepresented and equity-seeking groups to collaborate with faculty and staff to revise and reinvent pedagogies, assessments, and course designs, positioning equity and justice as core educational aims. When students have a seat at the table, previously unheard voices are amplified, and diversity and difference introduce essential perspectives that are too often overlooked.In particular, the book contributes to the literature on pedagogical partnership and equity in education by integrating theory, synthesizing research, and providing concrete examples of the ways partnership can contribute to more equitable educational systems. At the same time, the authors acknowledge that partnership can only realize its full potential to redress harms and promote equity and justice when thoughtfully enacted. This book is a resource that will inspire and challenge a wide variety of higher education faculty and staff and contribute to advancing both practice and research on the potential of student-faculty pedagogical partnerships. Presenting a conceptual framework for understanding the various epistemological, affective, and ontological harms that face students from equity-seeking groups inpost secondary education, Promoting Equity and Justice Through Pedagogical Partnership applies this conceptual framework to current literature in partnerships, highlighting the promise of partnership as the way to redress these harms. The authors ground both the conceptual framework and the literature review by offering two case studies of pedagogical partnership in practice. They then explore the complexities raised by their framework, including the conditions under which partnerships themselves may risk reproducing epistemic, affective, or ontological harms. Applying the framework in this way allows them to propose strategies that make it more likely for these mediations to be successful. Finally, the authors focus on the future of pedagogical partnership and share their perspectives on new directions for inquiry and practice. After summarizing the overarching themes developed throughout the book, the authors leave the reader with a set of questions and recommendations for further inquiry and discussion.

Faculty and staff in higher education are looking for ways to address the deep inequity and systemic racism that pervade our colleges and universities. Pedagogical partnership can be a powerful tool to enhance equity, inclusion, and justice in our classrooms and curricula. These partnerships create opportunities for students from underrepresented and equity-seeking groups to collaborate with faculty and staff to revise and reinvent pedagogies, assessments, and course designs, positioning equity and justice as core educational aims. When students have a seat at the table, previously unheard voices are amplified, and diversity and difference introduce essential perspectives that are too often overlooked.In particular, the book contributes to the literature on pedagogical partnership and equity in education by integrating theory, synthesizing research, and providing concrete examples of the ways partnership can contribute to more equitable educational systems. At the same time, the authors acknowledge that partnership can only realize its full potential to redress harms and promote equity and justice when thoughtfully enacted. This book is a resource that will inspire and challenge a wide variety of higher education faculty and staff and contribute to advancing both practice and research on the potential of student-faculty pedagogical partnerships. Presenting a conceptual framework for understanding the various epistemological, affective, and ontological harms that face students from equity-seeking groups inpost secondary education, Promoting Equity and Justice Through Pedagogical Partnership applies this conceptual framework to current literature in partnerships, highlighting the promise of partnership as the way to redress these harms. The authors ground both the conceptual framework and the literature review by offering two case studies of pedagogical partnership in practice. They then explore the complexities raised by their framework, including the conditions under which partnerships themselves may risk reproducing epistemic, affective, or ontological harms. Applying the framework in this way allows them to propose strategies that make it more likely for these mediations to be successful. Finally, the authors focus on the future of pedagogical partnership and share their perspectives on new directions for inquiry and practice. After summarizing the overarching themes developed throughout the book, the authors leave the reader with a set of questions and recommendations for further inquiry and discussion.

The book is about applying Lean manufacturing principles to industrial maintenance in order to improve the efficiency and be able to do more with the same (or less) resources. By industrial maintenance we mean the maintenance that takes place in factories and industrial facilities. The book is the result of multiple improvement projects carried out by the authors in various industrial settings and sectors in the past 10 years.The approach works and can be applied in any industry. It yields results without investment. The book is a step-by-step guide that takes the reader through the maintenance process, from equipment failure to finished repair. In each step of the process, the typical inefficiencies are explained and tools are given to improve the process. The book is meant to be used as a guide in an improvement journey. The improvement approach presented in the book is very close to the shop floor and instructs the reader to engage with all team members in the maintenance department in every step of the process, in order to make the improvements sustainable. If one looks at the main market indexes, between one third and one half of companies on those indexes belong to the industrial sector: automotive, power generation, basic materials, chemicals, consumer goods, et cetera. Those companies spend on average 2 - 5% of plant replacement value per year on maintenance. About one third of this cost is maintenance labor. The maintenance work that gets done every day in factories around the world is typically inefficient, from a Lean perspective: time is wasted, different tasks are not properly coordinated, job durations are overestimated and job plans, when they exist, are thus "inflated" to cover up the inefficiency. All this happens because maintenance tends to be the "forgotten" area of efficiency in industrial companies, as much of the improvements are carried out on the (literally) productive areas of the factories. When companies set out to "improve" maintenance, they typically do it through budget cuts that can risk the reliability of the equipment. The authors believe there is a better way to do more with the same resources through a careful review of the current way of working and the introduction of Lean. With this book , the authors try to bring to maintenance managers and practitioners the tools they need to quickly improve efficiency (in a matter of weeks) without any investment.

Luxury products are now seen by a growing number of global consumers as an important and more widely available way of expressing personal aspirations and values. Most consumers of luxury products and services use them as status symbols and symbols of success. However, the definition of success - and the way it is perceived by others - is changing. Many of these successful consumers now want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations. Such products come with a heavy social and environmental cost. Sustainable luxury is about rediscovering the old meaning of luxury - a considered purchase of a beautifully crafted object with built-in social and environmental value. The social entrepreneurs documented in this book highlight the relationship between personal values and sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation in developing and marketing luxury products. The pioneers outline how they have developed inclusive supply chains with poor and vulnerable communities. Their stories prove that luxury need not be a destructive force. Instead, this book opens a window on a world where entrepreneurial pioneers can change the rules of the game.

This is the third volume in a trilogy on modern Signal Processing. The three books provide a concise exposition of signal processing topics, and a guide to support individual practical exploration based on MATLAB programs. This book includes MATLAB codes to illustrate each of the main steps of the theory, offering a self-contained guide suitable for independent study. The code is embedded in the text, helping readers to put into practice the ideas and methods discussed. The book primarily focuses on filter banks, wavelets, and images. While the Fourier transform is adequate for periodic signals, wavelets are more suitable for other cases, such as short-duration signals: bursts, spikes, tweets, lung sounds, etc. Both Fourier and wavelet transforms decompose signals into components. Further, both are also invertible, so the original signals can be recovered from their components. Compressed sensing has emerged as a promising idea. One of the intended applications is networked devices or sensors, which are now becoming a reality; accordingly, this topic is also addressed. A selection of experiments that demonstrate image denoising applications are also included. In the interest of reader-friendliness, the longer programs have been grouped in an appendix; further, a second appendix on optimization has been added to supplement the content of the last chapter.

This is the first volume in a trilogy on modern Signal Processing. The three books provide a concise exposition of signal processing topics, and a guide to support individual practical exploration based on MATLAB programs. This book includes MATLAB codes to illustrate each of the main steps of the theory, offering a self-contained guide suitable for independent study. The code is embedded in the text, helping readers to put into practice the ideas and methods discussed. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which introduces readers to periodic and non-periodic signals. The second part is devoted to filtering, which is an important and commonly used application. The third part addresses more advanced topics, including the analysis of real-world non-stationary signals and data, e.g. structural fatigue, earthquakes, electro-encephalograms, birdsong, etc. The book's last chapter focuses on modulation, an example of the intentional use of non-stationary signals.

This is the second volume in a trilogy on modern Signal Processing. The three books provide a concise exposition of signal processing topics, and a guide to support individual practical exploration based on MATLAB programs. This second book focuses on recent developments in response to the demands of new digital technologies. It is divided into two parts: the first part includes four chapters on the decomposition and recovery of signals, with special emphasis on images. In turn, the second part includes three chapters and addresses important data-based actions, such as adaptive filtering, experimental modeling, and classification.

The book is about applying Lean manufacturing principles to industrial maintenance in order to improve the efficiency and be able to do more with the same (or less) resources. By industrial maintenance we mean the maintenance that takes place in factories and industrial facilities. The book is the result of multiple improvement projects carried out by the authors in various industrial settings and sectors in the past 10 years.The approach works and can be applied in any industry. It yields results without investment. The book is a step-by-step guide that takes the reader through the maintenance process, from equipment failure to finished repair. In each step of the process, the typical inefficiencies are explained and tools are given to improve the process. The book is meant to be used as a guide in an improvement journey. The improvement approach presented in the book is very close to the shop floor and instructs the reader to engage with all team members in the maintenance department in every step of the process, in order to make the improvements sustainable. If one looks at the main market indexes, between one third and one half of companies on those indexes belong to the industrial sector: automotive, power generation, basic materials, chemicals, consumer goods, et cetera. Those companies spend on average 2 - 5% of plant replacement value per year on maintenance. About one third of this cost is maintenance labor. The maintenance work that gets done every day in factories around the world is typically inefficient, from a Lean perspective: time is wasted, different tasks are not properly coordinated, job durations are overestimated and job plans, when they exist, are thus "inflated" to cover up the inefficiency. All this happens because maintenance tends to be the "forgotten" area of efficiency in industrial companies, as much of the improvements are carried out on the (literally) productive areas of the factories. When companies set out to "improve" maintenance, they typically do it through budget cuts that can risk the reliability of the equipment. The authors believe there is a better way to do more with the same resources through a careful review of the current way of working and the introduction of Lean. With this book , the authors try to bring to maintenance managers and practitioners the tools they need to quickly improve efficiency (in a matter of weeks) without any investment.

This is the second volume in a trilogy on modern Signal Processing. The three books provide a concise exposition of signal processing topics, and a guide to support individual practical exploration based on MATLAB programs. This second book focuses on recent developments in response to the demands of new digital technologies. It is divided into two parts: the first part includes four chapters on the decomposition and recovery of signals, with special emphasis on images. In turn, the second part includes three chapters and addresses important data-based actions, such as adaptive filtering, experimental modeling, and classification.

Celebrate the revered Mexican holiday of Dia de los Muertos with this beautiful little book. Packed with activities, recipes, spells, and rituals, this pocket-sized guide is a must-have tool for honouring the sacred dead. Author Jaime Girones shares authentic ways to respectfully enjoy this holiday, from creating an altar to baking pan de muerto (bread of the dead). Sharing his personal experiences and recommendations, Jaime guides you through the Day of the Dead's origins, history, and modern celebrations. Discover how to build an altar, set out your ancestors' favourite foods, and invite the spirits to a feast. Explore the significance of marigolds, sugar skulls, and monarch butterflies. You'll also learn how to say goodbye when celebrations are over. This book provides everything needed to honor the dead and share your love and abundance with them.

Taking advantage of the many specialists visiting Spain prior to the INFORMS Meeting in Barcelona, hold from July 14th to July 17th 1997, we organized a work shop on Decision Analysis Applications at the Real Academia de Ciencias, Madrid, Spain, from J uly 11th to 12th 1997, under the sponsorship of de the Instituto Espaiia. This workshop had a precedent in the International Conference Decision Making: Towards the 21st Century also held at the Real Academia de Ciencias in 1993. The idea of organizing an event, this time devoted to applications of Decision Analysis, was due to Prof. Sixto Rfos, who some four years ago, .sponsored and encouraged by the Royal Academy of Sciences, was the creator of an Interdisciplinary Working Group on Decision Analysis -formed with researchers from within and outside this Academy- which has been active since then, organizing periodical meetings, and whose last project has tumed out into this Workshop. The workshop turned out to be an stimulating opportunity for communicating and discussing the enormous variety of applications of Decision Sciences. In this volume we have included most of the invited papers and a selection of refereed contributed papers. Due to the varied nature of the applications, we have grouped them into five groups ending, as way of an epilog, with a paper by Sarin which contains important insights and reftections on the nature of Decision Analysis in public and private sectors."

Dramatic Comedy / 1m, 1f Emilie's Voltaire is a passionate dramatic comedy that explores a love affair that scandalized all of Europe between Voltaire, the greatest wit of his time, and the beautiful scientist Emilie du Chatelet. It takes place before the French Revolution. Winner of the Galileo Prize fo Playwriting "What happens when the minds of two seekers of knowledge, one a challenger of life and the other a hedonistic rule breaker, meet? The result is a tumultuous, fascinating 16-year love affair that is wonderfully portrayed in Arthur Giron's Emilie's Voltaire...The captivating Emilie's Voltaire is an inside look at genius and the underlying emotions that feed it. Definitely a bit of history you're pleased to discover." - OffBroadway.com "The intellectual, emotional and sexual sparks fly...an unusual and fascinating play." - William Wolf, Wolf Entertainment Guide "Arthur Giron's words are what actors long to wrap their voices around." - The New York Examiner "A beautiful pas de deux of dialogue!" - MusicOMH

The studyofthehealingpowerofchemicalcompounds, present into the known natural active principles and its subsequent use, shall be seen initially as a pseudoscientificprocedure, acontinuationoftheChineseandArabianoccultism, whichwasbased inthepercentagecontentoffire, air, earthandwater, aswellas ontheassociatedqualities: hot-cold, humid-dry. . ., whichthematterwassupposed to be formed by. Themethod, possessingroots in Hippocrates, Dioscoridesand Galen was studied, described and polished by Avicenna, Averrot s, Bacon and Villanova inthe MiddleAge. Italsowasappearingasastudyconstantduringthe renaissance and after. On the other hand, the birthofchemistry asascientific offspring from alchemy propitiated alternative ways ofknowledge in order to solve the same problem. In this manner, in the past century, approximately hundred years from now, Sylvester proposed the first molecular description in numerical discrete form, employing ideas which even in present times can be associated withinthesocalledmoleculartopology. Sylvester'stopologicalmodel can be considered the seed allowing the originofthis big tree, which is now knownastheoreticalchemistry. . During all the past time from the first topological modelofSylvester up to now, the proliferationofnumerical parameters to describe molecular structures has not ceased to grow larger. Some ofthese parameters have played a very important role for the understandingofthe organic molecules behavior and, by extension, for the comprehension and evaluation of their physical as well as biologicalproperties. InthemindofeveryspecialistaretheHammett'scr, theTaft constantsor the octanol-water partition coefficient. Other numerical parameters, suchasthosederivedfromthemodemtopologicalmolecularrepresentationarein aprocessofconstantrevisionandgrowing. Thus, theHosoyaandRandicindices, ortheKier'sconnectivities, amongseveralnotsowellknownnumericaldataare usual reference descriptors. They are putatthe researchers' disposition, andare easily deducible from any molecular representation in form ofordered setsof numerical figures. All ofthem are profusely studied and employed in present times. The main idea consists into the useofthese numerical data in orderto obtaininformationonthemoleculartrendstopossessoracquirecertainproperties and, even better than this, to determine in which degree or intensity molecules presenteverything.

Taking advantage of the many specialists visiting Spain prior to the INFORMS Meeting in Barcelona, hold from July 14th to July 17th 1997, we organized a work shop on Decision Analysis Applications at the Real Academia de Ciencias, Madrid, Spain, from J uly 11th to 12th 1997, under the sponsorship of de the Instituto Espaiia. This workshop had a precedent in the International Conference Decision Making: Towards the 21st Century also held at the Real Academia de Ciencias in 1993. The idea of organizing an event, this time devoted to applications of Decision Analysis, was due to Prof. Sixto Rfos, who some four years ago, .sponsored and encouraged by the Royal Academy of Sciences, was the creator of an Interdisciplinary Working Group on Decision Analysis -formed with researchers from within and outside this Academy- which has been active since then, organizing periodical meetings, and whose last project has tumed out into this Workshop. The workshop turned out to be an stimulating opportunity for communicating and discussing the enormous variety of applications of Decision Sciences. In this volume we have included most of the invited papers and a selection of refereed contributed papers. Due to the varied nature of the applications, we have grouped them into five groups ending, as way of an epilog, with a paper by Sarin which contains important insights and reftections on the nature of Decision Analysis in public and private sectors."

This volume provides an overview of microbial toxins from diverse bacterial and fungal origins. These molecules, produced by various species and consisting of protein or small organic molecules, can play a pivotal role in pathogenesis of plants, animals, and humans that in turn can lead to the survival/dissemination of the host microbe. Many of these microbes, due to their toxins, impact our society from a health and economic perspective. In particular, this volume address the diverse niches of these organisms focused upon their associated toxins. The structures, functions, and genetics of toxins will be addressed. Besides the ill-effects elicited by these toxins, it must be noted that there is immense potential for turning some of these harmful molecules into useful tools as specific probes (of receptors), novel drugs or drug-conjugates for the treatment of various diseases, and immunomodulating agents for targeted vaccine delivery for research and unique medicines. Recent progress in bacterial genome mapping and establishment of three-dimensional crystal structures of several bacterial toxins provides a deeper knowledge and greater understanding of structure-function relationships. Moreover, the emergence of some bacteria (i.e., Bacillus anthracis, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Staphylococcus aureus), and their toxins, as biological weapons also necessitates a thorough understanding of these agents, their pathophysiology, and development of countermeasures. This volume will also be a common resource for researchers interested in many other medically-relevant microorganisms, and their toxins, that include Clostridium botulinum, C. difficile, C. perfringens, C. tetani, Escherichia coli, Helicobacter pylori, and Listeria monocytogenes. Recent studies have correlated the effect of global warming and climate change as a trigger for natural disasters and impact on human health via emergence of various vector-borne and infectious diseases caused by toxin-producing microbes. The 2003 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, "Microbial Threats to Health," identified the influence of changing ecosystem on the emergence and spread of infectious diseases and economic development of specific regions of the world. This current handbook is a major reference work on microbial toxins written by a panel of International experts and organized into 24 chapters.

Blended synchronous learning (BSL), where some students are present in a physical classroom while others participate online in real time, has been gaining momentum and shows great potential for teaching less commonly taught languages (LCTLs). In Teaching Languages in Blended Synchronous Learning Classrooms, Alba Girons and Nicholas Swinehart provide a concise overview of BSL as it pertains to language instruction. Topics include a number of key factors in the BSL classroom: • types of BSL environments• pedagogical considerations• group dynamics• creating and adapting activities• common logistical challenges• optimal space design• technology selection, training, and support This practical guide will be of use to teachers, technology staff, and program administrators, all working together to implement successful BSL programs and ensure quality learning opportunities for every student.

This is the first volume in a trilogy on modern Signal Processing. The three books provide a concise exposition of signal processing topics, and a guide to support individual practical exploration based on MATLAB programs. This book includes MATLAB codes to illustrate each of the main steps of the theory, offering a self-contained guide suitable for independent study. The code is embedded in the text, helping readers to put into practice the ideas and methods discussed. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which introduces readers to periodic and non-periodic signals. The second part is devoted to filtering, which is an important and commonly used application. The third part addresses more advanced topics, including the analysis of real-world non-stationary signals and data, e.g. structural fatigue, earthquakes, electro-encephalograms, birdsong, etc. The book's last chapter focuses on modulation, an example of the intentional use of non-stationary signals.

This is the third volume in a trilogy on modern Signal Processing. The three books provide a concise exposition of signal processing topics, and a guide to support individual practical exploration based on MATLAB programs. This book includes MATLAB codes to illustrate each of the main steps of the theory, offering a self-contained guide suitable for independent study. The code is embedded in the text, helping readers to put into practice the ideas and methods discussed. The book primarily focuses on filter banks, wavelets, and images. While the Fourier transform is adequate for periodic signals, wavelets are more suitable for other cases, such as short-duration signals: bursts, spikes, tweets, lung sounds, etc. Both Fourier and wavelet transforms decompose signals into components. Further, both are also invertible, so the original signals can be recovered from their components. Compressed sensing has emerged as a promising idea. One of the intended applications is networked devices or sensors, which are now becoming a reality; accordingly, this topic is also addressed. A selection of experiments that demonstrate image denoising applications are also included. In the interest of reader-friendliness, the longer programs have been grouped in an appendix; further, a second appendix on optimization has been added to supplement the content of the last chapter.