Agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS), a way to simulate a large number of choices by individual actors, is one of the most exciting practical developments in business modeling since the invention of relational databases. It represents a new way to understand data and generate information that has never been available before--a way for businesses to view the future and to understand and anticipate the likely effects of their decisions on their markets and industries. It thus promises to have far-reaching effects on the way that businesses in many areas use computers to support practical decision-making.
Managing Business Complexity is the first complete business-oriented agent-based modeling and simulation resource. It has three purposes: first, to teach readers how to think about ABMS, that is, about agents and their interactions; second, to teach readers how to explain the features and advantages of ABMS to other people and third, to teach readers how to actually implement ABMS by building agent-based simulations. It is intended to be a complete ABMS resource, accessible to readers who haven't had any previous experience in building agent-based simulations, or any other kinds of models, for that matter. It is also a collection of ABMS business applications resources, all assembled in one place for the first time. In short, Managing Business Complexity addresses who needs ABMS and why, where and when ABMS can be applied to the everyday business problems that surround us, and how specifically to build these powerful agent-based models.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

A COMPANION TO AMERICAN POETRY A Companion to American Poetry brings together original essays by both established scholars and emerging critical voices to explore the latest topics and debates in American poetry and its study. Highlighting the diverse nature of poetic practice and scholarship, this comprehensive volume addresses a broad range of individual poets, movements, genres, and concepts from the seventeenth century to the present day. Organized thematically, the Companion's thirty-seven chapters address a variety of emerging trends in American poetry, providing historical context and new perspectives on topics such as poetics and identity, poetry and the arts, early and late experimentalisms, poetry and the transcendent, transnational poetics, poetry of engagement, poetry in cinema and popular music, Queer and Trans poetics, poetry and politics in the 21st century, and African American, Asian American, Latinx, and Indigenous poetries. Both a nuanced survey of American poetry and a catalyst for future scholarship, A Companion to American Poetry is essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, academic researchers and scholars, and general readers with interest in current trends in American poetry.

Medicine has entered a golden age in which therapeutic agents are becoming widely available due to advances in basic science and technology. As such, many drugs have been developed that target inflammatory processes and/or the immune system. This book is intended for health professionals examining the modulation of inflammation by immunotherapeutic drugs. The immune system fills the primordial role of host defense and resistance to infections with pathogenic microorganisms. Several hematopoietic-derived cells constituting the innate and adaptive immune systems cooperate to provide barriers for microbial colonization and/or promote pathogen destruction within the host. Conversely, many immune cells are also involved in the pathogenesis and propagation of chronic inflammatory diseases. The beginning of this book details various components of the immune system including the cell types, lymphoid tissues, soluble cytokines and surface molecules that are essential for host defense. Breakdowns in immune tolerance, or dysregulated immune responses to antigens derived from self tissues or innocuous sources, can lead to the development of autoimmunity or chronic inflammatory diseases. Pathophysiologic roles for the immune system are detailed in corresponding chapters on autoimmunity, epithelial surfaces (lungs, skin, intestine), and transplantation, with special emphasis placed on immunotherapeutic drug targets. The last section of the book focuses on treatments that stimulate our immune system to specifically target and fight infectious diseases and cancer. In each chapter, the medications used to treat various diseases/conditions in terms of their mechanism of action and other pharmacologic properties are detailed. Chapters begin with a table showing drug names and classifications. The importance of basic science and clinical trials cannot be understated in the context of drug development. As such, the discovery of certain medications that had a lasting impact in medicine and pharmacy are highlighted in chapter subsections named "Bench to Bedside." Several clinical applications of immunotherapeutic drugs are described within end-of -chapter case studies including practice questions. The Pharmacology of Immunotherapeutic Drugs is a reference for immunologists and clinicians (medical doctors, pharmacists, nurses) examining the modulation of inflammatory processes by a variety of medications targeting the cells and mediators of our immune system.

Description
Innovation is universally recognized as an important source of economic growth. Patents may be considered as a potential measure of innovation. As such, patents may alter isoquant maps, and measuring their elasticities is both intuitively and empirically appealing. This book investigates the impact of U.S.A. patent activity on technical change in 35 industries given in the KLEM (Jorgenson, 1996) data set for the period 1958-1996. Four patent variables, namely total patent applications, total patents granted, unsuccessful patent applications and foreign patents granted, are introduced as technology-changing parameters into the generalized Fechner-Thurstone (GFT) production function to determine the effect on the elasticity of the marginal rate of technical substitution (MRTS) between inputs of the GFT production function over time. It is found that all four patent variables have significant impacts on the marginal rates of technical substitution between various production inputs over time, with foreign patents granted being the most "effective" parameter, and unsuccessful patent applications the least effective. In addition, the elasticity of the MRTS between materials and energy is found to be the most affected by patent activity, and that between materials and labor the least. The extent of technical change by patent activity varies across industries. Patent activity is found to be less effective as technology changes in some traditionally high patenting industries and more effective in others, which indicates that there are significant spillover effects of patents. Patent activity is found to have the greatest impact on technical change in the metal mining industryand the least impact in the chemicals industry.

The author examines the role of comedy in the novels of four key postmodern Spanish-American writers: Gustavo Sainz, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Jaime Bayly and Fernando Vallejo. An important but often overlooked function of comedy is its intrinsic relation to questions of identity. This relationship, furthermore, is connected to another traditional feature of comedy: the utopian impulse. This book analyses these functions of comedy in the novels of four key postmodern Spanish-American writers: Gustavo Sainz, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Fernando Vallejo and Jaime Bayly. Focusing on the correlation between changing concepts of identityand the hybrid cultural context of the late 20th-century, it examines the issues of individual and social identities expressed by these authors in their inscription and distortion of the comic genre as well as in their usage of different modes of comedy. It views the novels' comic aspects as symptoms of hybridity, which, according to many theorists, have brought about the dissolution of concepts, such as the self and society, and utopian modernity. Thesesymptoms are studied in tandem with the individual themes of the novels, such as gender, sexuality, class and global migration, as well as the 'post-national' question of Peruvian, Colombian and Mexican identity. PaulMcAleer is Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Hull.

The importance of country risk is underscored by the existence of several prominent country risk rating agencies. These agencies combine information regarding alternative measures of economic, financial and political risk into associated composite risk ratings. As the accuracy of such country risk measures is open to question, it is necessary to analyse the agency rating systems to enable an evaluation of the importance and relevance of agency risk ratings. The book focuses on the rating system of the international country risk guide. "Time" series data permit a comparative assessment of risk ratings for 120 countries, and highlight the importance of economic, financial and political risk ratings as components of a composite risk rating. The book analyses various univariate and multivariate risk returns and corresponding symmetric and asymmetric models of conditional volatility, as well as conditional correlations.

Barrie Gunter and Jill McAleer examine the research evidence into the effects of television on children and their reponses to it. They conclude that children are more sophisticated viewers than we often give them credit for, and control television far more than it controls them.
This completely revised second edition of Children and Television brings the story of children and television right up to date and includes a discussion of the new entertainment media now available.

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Porcelain on Steel is an insider's tour of one of America's most storied institutions and shares with the reader what it takes to succeed in the high-pressure, high-performance, high-testosterone lab that produces leaders for the Army and for our Nation. In an era where the American public is saturated with women selling sexuality, this book highlights those who, blessed with strong character traits, use them to make a positive contribution to society. Leadership is a matter of character; leadership is matter of how to be, not how to do it. Leadership is something that is instilled in you-and great leaders in turn instill the ability in others. The women in Porcelain on Steel exemplify this-for all ages and wisdom for all time. Their qualities and strength of character would lead to success in any era but most importantly, their stories are especially relevant now, in today's times. This is a book for your daughter, your sister, your best friend, and most of all, yourself. *** The women in Porcelain on Steel are genuine role models. America's youth, whether male or female, as well as parents in search of stories of inspiration, courage, loyalty, public service and leadership that set a positive direction for our young people, should read this book. This is a powerful and inspirational portrait of the women who serve-not just our country, but their families, their communities, and their own commitment to a purposeful and meaningful life. These women, like the author Donna McAleer herself, had the courage and strength to attend West Point-the toughest and most elite military school in the nation-and have the heart and soul to be role models for women everywhere. We can find courage in their courage, faith in their faith, and our own best selves in them. West Point is an indispensible institution that has helped sustain our democracy for more than 200 years. About the Author: Donna McAleer graduated from West Point in 1987 and served as an Army Officer. Actively involved in the West Point community, she serves as Class President and is an Admissions Field Representative. Donna was elected to the boards of directors of the West Point Association of Graduates, the West Point Women's Network, and is an advisor to West-Point.org. She is the co-founder of Bugle Notes, an on-line community for West Point graduates and cadets. (www.buglenotes.com). She earned a master's degree from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia. An outdoor enthusiast with a particular passion for skiing, Donna lives in Park City, Utah with Ted, her husband, Carlyn Ann, their daughter and Col. (ret) Thayer, their dog. Porcelain on Steel is her first book.

Confucian and Stoic Perspectives on Forgiveness explores the absence of forgiveness in classical Confucianism and Roman Stoicism as well as the alternatives to forgiveness that these rich philosophical traditions offer. After discussing forgiveness as it is understood in contemporary philosophy, Sean McAleer explores Confucius' vocabulary for and attitude toward anger and resentment, arguing that Confucius does not object to anger but to its excesses. While Confucius does not make room for forgiveness, McAleer argues that Mencius cannot do so, given the distinctive twist he gives to self-examination in response to mistreatment. Xunzi, by contrast, leaves open a door to forgiveness that Mencius bolted shut. The book then proceeds to the Roman Stoics-Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca-arguing that their distinctive conceptions of value and wellbeing rule out forgiveness, though like the Confucians the Stoics offer alternatives to forgiveness well worth considering. The book ends by comparing the two traditions, arguing that while Stoicism helps us navigate many of the turbulent waters of everyday life, Confucianism enjoys advantages when we interact with those to whom we are bound by ties of affection and intimacy.

In The Wisdom of Our Ancestors, the authors mount a powerful defense of Western civilization, sketching a fresh vision of conservatism in the present age. In this book, Graham McAleer and Alexander Rosenthal-Pubul offer a renewed vision of conservatism for the twenty-first century. Taking their inspiration from the late Roger Scruton, the authors begin with a simple question: What, after all, is the meaning of conservatism? In reply, they make a case for a political orientation that they call “conservative humanism,” which threads a middle way between liberal universalism and its ideological alternatives. This vision of conservatism is rooted in the humanist tradition (that is, classical humanism, Christian humanism, and secular humanism), which the authors take to be the hallmark of Western civilizational identity. At its core, conservative humanism attempts to reconcile universal moral values (rooted in natural law) with local, particularist loyalties. In articulating this position, the authors show that the West—contra various contemporary critics—does, in fact, have a great deal of wisdom to offer. The authors begin with an overview of the conservative thought world, situating their proposal relative to two major poles: liberalism and nationalism. They move on to show that conservatism must fundamentally take the form of a defense of humanism, the “master idea of our civilization.” The ensuing chapters articulate various aspects of conservative humanism, including its metaphysical, institutional, legal, philosophical, and economic dimensions. Largely rooted in the Anglo-Continental conservative tradition, the work offers fresh perspectives for North American conservatism.

The essays in this collection examine the connections between the forces of empire and women's lives in the early Americas, in particular the ways their narratives contributed to empire formation. Focusing on the female body as a site of contestation, the essays describe acts of bravery, subversion, and survival expressed in a variety of genres, including the saga, letter, diary, captivity narrative, travel narrative, verse, sentimental novel, and autobiography. The volume also speaks to a range of female experience, across the Americas and across time, from the Viking exploration to early nineteenth-century United States, challenging scholars to reflect on the implications of early American literature even to the present day.

Before the advent of television, reading was among the most popular of leisure activities. Light fiction--romances, thrillers, westerns--was the sustenance of millions in wartime and in peace. This lively and scholarly study examines the size and complexion of the reading public and the development of an increasingly commercialized publishing industry through the first half of the twentieth century. Joseph McAleer uses a variety of sources, from the Mass-Observation Archive to previously confidential publishers' records, to explore the nature of popular fiction and its readers. He analyzes the editorial policies which created the success of Mills & Boon, publishers of romantic fiction, and D. C. Thomson, the genius behind The Hotspur and other magazines for boys, and also charts the rise and fall of the Religious Tract Society, creator of the legendary Boy's Own Paper, as a popular publisher.

Curating empire explores the diverse roles played by museums and their curators in moulding and representing the British imperial experience. This collection demonstrates how individuals, their curatorial practices, and intellectual and political agendas influenced the development of a variety of museums across the globe. Taken together, these contributions suggest that museums are not just sites for accessing history but need to be considered as historical sites of significance in themselves. Individual essays examine the work of curators in museums in Britain and the colonies, the historical display and interpretation of empire in Britain, and the establishment of 'museum networks' in the British imperial context. Curating empire sheds new light on the relationship between museums, as repositories for objects and cultural institutions for conveying knowledge, and the politics of culture and the formation of identities throughout the British Empire. -- .

This book foregrounds the role of the Royal Navy in creating the British Atlantic in the eighteenth century. It outlines the closely entwined connections between the nurturing of naval supremacy, the politics of commercial protection, and the development of national and imperial identities - crucial factors in the consolidation and transformation of the British Atlantic empire. The collection brings together scholars working on aspects of the Royal Navy and the British Atlantic in order to gain a better understanding of the ways that the Navy protected, facilitated, and shaped the British-Atlantic empire in the era of war, revolution, counter-revolution, and upheaval between the beginning of the Seven Years War and the end of the conflict with Napoleonic France. Contributions question the limits - conceptually and geographically - of that Atlantic world, suggesting that, by considering the Royal Navy and the British Atlantic together, we can gain greater insights into Britain's maritime history.

Many readers know Stephen King for his early works of horror, from his fiction debut Carrie to his blockbuster novels The Shining, The Stand, and Misery, among others. While he continues to be a best-selling author, King's more recent fiction has not received the kind of critical attention that his books from the 1970s and 1980s enjoyed. Recent novels like Duma Key and 1/22/63 have been marginalized and, arguably, cast aside as anomalies within the author's extensive canon. In Stephen King's Contemporary Classics: Reflections on the Modern Master of Horror, Philip L. Simpson and Patrick McAleer present a collection of essays that analyze, assess, and critique King's post-1995 compositions. Purposefully side-stepping studies of earlier work, these essays are arranged into three main parts: the first section examines five King novels published between 2009 and 2013, offering genuinely fresh scholarship on King; the second part looks at the development of King's distinct brand of horror; the third section departs from probing the content of King's writing and instead focuses on King's process. By concentrating on King's most recent writings, this collection offers provocative insights into the author's work, featuring essays on Dr. Sleep, Duma Key, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Joyland, Under the Dome, and others. As such, Stephen King's Contemporary Classics will appeal to general fans of the author's work as well as scholars of Stephen King and modern literature.

Exhibiting the empire considers how a whole range of cultural products - from paintings, prints, photographs, panoramas and 'popular' texts to ephemera, newspapers and the press, theatre and music, exhibitions, institutions and architecture - were used to record, celebrate and question the development of the British Empire. It represents a significant and original contribution to our understanding of the relationship between culture and empire. Written by leading scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, individual chapters bring fresh perspectives to the interpretation of media, material culture and display, and their interaction with history. Taken together, this collection suggests that the history of empire needs to be, in part at least, a history of display and of reception. This book will be essential reading for scholars and students interested in British history, the history of empire, art history and the history of museums and collecting. -- .

This book has been written for those who must work with and give care to the dying. Our discussion is not simple narrative or description; it is a "rendition of reality," informed by a rather densely woven and fairly abstract theoretical scheme. This scheme evolved gradually during the course of our research. The second audience for this volume is social scientists who are less interested in dying than they are in useful substantive theory. Our central concern is with the temporal aspects of work. The theory presented here may be useful to social scientists interested in areas far removed from health, medicine, or hospitals. The training of physicians and nurses equips them for the technical aspects of dealing with illness. Medical students learn not to kill patients through error, and to save lives through diagnosis and treatment. But their teachers put little or no emphasis on how to talk with dying patients; how-or whether-to disclose an impending death; or even how to approach the subject with the wives, husbands, children, and parents of the dying. Students of nursing are taught how to give nursing care to terminal patients, as well as how to give "post-mortem care." But the psychological aspects of dealing with the dying and their families are virtually absent from training. Although physicians and nurses are highly skilled at handling the bodies of terminal patients, their behavior to them otherwise is actually outside the province of professional standards. Much, if not most, nontechnical conduct toward, and in the presence of, dying patients and their families is profoundly influenced by "common sense" assumptions, essentially untouched by professional or even rational considerations or by current advancement in social-psychological knowledge. The process of dying in hospitals is much affected by professional training and codes, and by the particular conditions of work generated by hospitals as places of work. A third important consideration in interpreting dying as a temporal process is that dying is a social as well as a biological and psychological process. The term "social" underlines that the dying person is not simply leaving life. Unless he dies without kin or friends, and in such a way that his death is completely undiscovered his death is recorded. His dying is inextricably bound up with the life of society, however insignificant his particular life may have been or how small the impact his death makes upon its future course. This aspect of dying is treated in relationship to what the authors call "status passage." Time for Dying is an illumination of the temporal features of dying in hospitalsuas related both to the work of hospital personnel and to dying itself as a social process. Barney G. Glaser is the founder of the Grounded Theory Institute in Mill Valley, California, and has also been a research sociologist at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including The Grounded Theory Perspective II and Experts versus Laymen: A Study of the Patsy and the Subcontractor, published by Aldine Transaction. Anselm L. Strauss (1916-1996) was emeritus professor of sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. He was the author of numerous books, including Professions, Work and Careers, Mirrors and Masks: The Search for Identity, and Creating Sociological Awareness: Collective Images and Symbolic Representations, all published in new editions by Transaction.