The world food situation is deteriorating. Grain stocks have dropped to a dangerously low level. The World Food Price Index has doubled in one decade. The ranks of the hungry are expanding; political unrest is spreading. On the demand side of the food equation, there will be 219,000 people at the dinner table tonight who were not there last night. And some 3 billion increasingly affluent people are moving up the food chain, consuming grain-intensive livestock and poultry products. At the same time, water shortages and heat waves are making it more difficult for farmers to keep pace with demand. As grain-exporting countries ban exports to keep their food prices down, importing countries are panicking. In response, they are buying large tracts of land in other countries to grow food for themselves. The land rush is on. Could food become the weak link for us as it was for so many earlier civilizations? Lester Brown, one of the leading environmentalists of our time, explains why world food supplies are tightening and tells what we need to do about it.

Distribution channels are the most complex element of the marketing mix to fully grasp and to profitably manage. In this Handbook the authors present cutting-edge research on channel management and design from analytical, conceptual, and empirical perspectives. The ultimate objective of this Handbook is a comprehensive theory of distribution channels for scholars presented in enlightened surveys of the literature to tightly reasoned investigations. Channel management topics include value creation, interorganizational knowledge transfer, contract design, governance and control, and relationship management. Channel design topics encompass coordination, supply-chain management, price vs. quantity competition, channel breadth, franchising, resale price maintenance, and bricks-and-mortar vs. online retailer competition. The book concludes with a sketch of a ''Comprehensive Theory of Distribution Channels'' meant to incorporate and extend current thinking. The breadth of this Handbook makes it appropriate for use in a doctoral course on distribution channels, or as a knowledge-broadening resource for faculty and researchers who wish to understand types of channels research that are outside the scope of their own approach to distribution. Contributors include: K.D. Antia, B.L. Baker, P. Bicen, C.P. Blocker, J.R. Brown, G. Cai, N.N. Chau, S.C. Choi, J.L. Crosno, T.H. Cui, Y. Dai, R.P. Dant, R. Desiraju, K. Eshghi, D.J. Flint, K.M. Frias, M. Ghosh, S. Gilbert, G.T. Gundlach, C.M. Harmeling, J.D. Hibbard, M.B. Houston, C.A. Ingene, K. Jerath, G. John, J. Johnson, M. Kacker, G. Lai, Z. Li, R.F. Lusch, P. Mallucci, A.J. Malter, S. Mani, A.L. Matthews, R.W. Palmatier, S.-J. Park, R.E. Paul, J. Raju, S. Ray, F. Sadeh, R.S. Sohi, J.M. Song, R. Staelin, A.S. Vinhas, M. Viswanathan, K.H. Wathne, S.K. Weaven, X. Xu, W. Zhang, Z.J. Zhang, Y. Zhao

Contemporary scholars of Chinese philosophy often presuppose that early China possessed a naturalistic worldview, devoid of any non-natural concepts, such as transcendence. Challenging this presupposition head-on, Joshua R. Brown and Alexus McLeod argue that non-naturalism and transcendence have a robust and significant place in early Chinese thought. This book reveals that non-naturalist positions can be found in early Chinese texts, in topics including conceptions of the divine, cosmogony, and apophatic philosophy. Moreover, by closely examining a range of early Chinese texts, and providing comparative readings of a number of Western texts and thinkers, the book offers a way of reading early Chinese Philosophy as consistent with the religious philosophy of the East and West, including the Abrahamic and the Brahmanistic religions. Co-written by a philosopher and theologian, this book draws out unique insights into early Chinese thought, highlighting in particular new ways to consider a range of Chinese concepts, including tian, dao, li, and you/wu.

This book provides a global perspective on COVID-19, taking the heterogenous realities of the pandemic into account. Contributions are rooted in critical social science studies of risk and uncertainty and characterized by theoretical approaches such as cultural theory, risk society theory, governmentality perspectives, and many important insights from 'southern' theories. Some of the chapters in the book have a more theoretical-conceptual emphasis, while others are more empirically oriented - but all chapters engage in an insightful dialogue between the theoretical and the empirical, in order to develop a rich, diverse and textured picture of the new challenge the world is facing and responding to. Addressing multiple levels of responses to the coronavirus, as understood in terms of, institutional and governance policies, media communication and interpretation, and the sense-making and actions of individual citizens in their everyday lives, the book brings together a diverse range of studies from across 6 continents. These chapters are connected by a common emphasis on applying critical theoretical approaches which help make sense of, and critique, the responses of states, organisations and individuals to the social phenomena emerging amid the Corona pandemic.

Conway retires from the FBI at the age of sixty. He takes with him copies of reports he'd come across when he had been investigating murders. He begins to track a particular hit man believed to be responsible for many of those murders. Brian Purger is a free-lance hit man. His survival depends on his cunning and strength. He finds peace only at his New Hampshire mountain retreat. Bill is the closest thing to a friend Purger has ever had. Bill is a college graduate and works for a large company. He is a widower with a young daughter and values family life above all else. He is in love with Leigh but is worried she will find out about his friendship with Purger. Leigh is divorced, a working mother with two children. She is insecure and wants more than anything to have her children grow up with a father figure in the home. She loves Bill and thinks he is the answer to making her family complete. Bill takes Leigh on a romantic skiing trip to a remote New England mountain and finds that a blizzard is closing in. Bill has never told Leigh that Purger also has a cabin on the mountain. The ski holiday soon intrudes into Purger's reclusive life. He tells Bill that he will eliminate the woman if she gets too close. He believes he will be doing his friend a favor. He threatens to kill Bill too if he gets in the way. Bill warns Leigh and tells her about Purger, but they cannot escape in the car because of the blizzard. They decide to ski down the mountain to safety. When Bill disappears during the trip, Leigh realizes she is alone on the mountain, with a professional killer in pursuit.

Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers focuses on controversial issues in current Holocaust scholarship. How did Nazi Jewish policy evolve during the first years of the war? When did the Nazi regime cross the historic watershed from population expulsion and decimation ("ethnic cleansing") to total and systematic extermination? How did Nazi authorities attempt to reconcile policies of expulsion and extermination with the wartime urge to exploit Jewish labor? How were Jewish workers impacted? What role did local authorities play in shaping Nazi policy? What more can we learn about the mindset and behavior of the local perpetrators? Using new evidence, this book attempts to shed light on these important questions. Christopher R. Browning is the Frank Porter Graham Professor of History at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is the author of The Path to Genocide (Cambridge University Press 1992) and Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, which received the Jewish National Book Award.

Physical Relativity explores the nature of the distinction at the heart of Einstein's 1905 formulation of his special theory of relativity: that between kinematics and dynamics. Einstein himself became increasingly uncomfortable with this distinction, and with the limitations of what he called the 'principle theory' approach inspired by the logic of thermodynamics. A handful of physicists and philosophers have over the last century likewise expressed doubts about Einstein's treatment of the relativistic behaviour of rigid bodies and clocks in motion in the kinematical part of his great paper, and suggested that the dynamical understanding of length contraction and time dilation intimated by the immediate precursors of Einstein is more fundamental. Harvey Brown both examines and extends these arguments (which support a more 'constructive' approach to relativistic effects in Einstein's terminology), after giving a careful analysis of key features of the pre-history of relativity theory. He argues furthermore that the geometrization of the theory by Minkowski in 1908 brought illumination, but not a causal explanation of relativistic effects. Finally, Brown tries to show that the dynamical interpretation of special relativity defended in the book is consistent with the role this theory must play as a limiting case of Einstein's 1915 theory of gravity: the general theory of relativity. Appearing in the centennial year of Einstein's celebrated paper on special relativity, Physical Relativity is an unusual, critical examination of the way Einstein formulated his theory. It also examines in detail certain specific historical and conceptual issues that have long given rise to debate in both special and general relativity theory, such as the conventionality of simultaneity, the principle of general covariance, and the consistency or otherwise of the special theory with quantum mechanics. Harvey Brown' s new interpretation of relativity theory will interest anyone working on these central topics in modern physics.

What make someone a good human being? Is there an objective answer to this question, an answer that can be given in naturalistic terms? For ages philosophers have attempted to develop some sort of naturalistic ethics. Against ethical naturalism, however, notable philosophers have contended that such projects are impossible, due to the existence of some sort of gap between facts and values. Others have suggested that teleology, upon which many forms of ethical naturalism depend, is an outdated metaphysical concept. This book argues that a good human being is one who has those traits the possession of which enables someone to achieve those ends natural to beings like us. Thus, the answer to the question of what makes a good human being is given in terms both objective and naturalistic. The author shows that neither 'is-ought' gaps, nor objections concerning teleology pose insurmountable problems for naturalistic virtue ethics. This work is a much needed contribution to the ongoing debate about ethical theory and ethical virtue.

Developed by renowned therapist and bestselling author Harville Hendrix, PhD, Imago Therapy is a groundbreaking approach to working with couples. The "Imago" is the unconscious image we hold of our parents. According to Hendrix, people select their mates by seeking "Imago matches"--individuals who resemble their parents in salient ways. A couple's relationship dynamic is created and shaped as each partner interacts with his or her Imago match, revisiting unfinished or unresolved issues from childhood.

Based on the ideas popularized in Hendrix's New York Times bestseller Getting the Love You Want, this is the first book to systematically describe to mental health professionals the theory and practice of Imago Therapy. Rick Brown, ThM, the Executive Director of the Institute for Imago Relationship Therapy, reveals the developmental and analytic underpinnings of the Imago approach, and clearly demonstrates how to apply these principles in a clinical setting. Drawing on a range of case studies, Brown shows how to coach couples to work through their unresolved childhood issues and toward a safe, passionate, and committed conscious relationship.

The first clinical primer to this innova-tive approach to couples therapy, "Imago Relationship Therapy" brings therapists a comprehensive and practical exploration of one of the most talked about approaches in the field.

"As a co-originator, with Helen Hunt, of the theory and practice, I am delighted with the accuracy of the presentation and feel gratified that it finally brings "Imago Relationship Therapy" to the therapeutic community. I give it my full endorsement.

While other books have been written on application of IRT to othercontexts and summary chapters have appeared in other books, this is the first book-length primer to describe the general practice of IRT with couples. Rick Brown is eminently qualified to write this book. He has been a Certified Imago Therapist(r) for nearly a decade, teaching the theory and practice to therapists nationally and internationally, and he has been an able Executive Director of the Institute for "Imago Relationship Therapy," I was delighted to learn that he was invited by the publisher to expand his public lectures into a book. Therapists who read it will get a general overview of the metatheory, the clinical theory, and the clinical practice of Imago Relationship Therapy. . . . It does offer therapists who wish to become familiar with IRT an accurate and clear guide to its theory and practice and, in addition, it is an excellent review for Imago therapists." --Harville Hendrix, PhD, from the Foreword.

Periodic worldwide economic turmoil over the last few decades has created an environment in which the degree of risk of investment assets is now an important factor in their evaluation. Real Estate Investment: A Capital Market Approach is the first text to examine the effect of such changes on real estate markets, taking an in-depth look at three major areas of financial and economic importance within the real estate profession: * The time value of money and the valuation of cash flows * Risk and return in real estate * Portfolio management Real Estate Investment: A Capital Market Approach is aimed primarily at students on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in property investment or finance and MBA real estate specialists. The text is also of interest to fund managers, property researchers and professional investment valuers.

With an introduction by Charlotte R. Brown and William Edward Morris. David Hume (1711-1776) was the most important philosopher ever to write in English, as well as a master stylist. This volume contains his major philosophical works. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740), published while Hume was still in his twenties, consists of three books on the understanding, the passions, and morals. It applies the experimental method of reasoning to human nature in a revolution that was intended to make Hume the Newton of the moral sciences. Disappointed with the Treatise's failure to bring about such a revolution, Hume later recast Book I as An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1751), and Book III as An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which he regarded as 'incomparably the best' of all his works. Both Enquiries went through several editions in his lifetime. Hume's works, controversial in his day, remain deeply and widely influential in ours, especially for his contributions to our understanding of the nature of morality, political and economic theory, philosophy of religion, and philosophical naturalism. This volume also includes Hume's anonymous Abstract of Books I and II of the Treatise, and the short autobiographical essay, 'My Own Life', which he wrote just before his death.

In a Washington, D.C. hospital, a U.S. Senator dies of an unknown infectious disease. In California, a college campus is under quarantine and hospitals are pushed to the breaking point. In Wyoming, the banks of streams are littered with dead fish and birds are falling from the sky. The genetically engineered plague has escaped its lab in Colorado and is now spreading without mercy from coast to coast, infecting any living host it can find. But before any cure can be found, the bacteria must be stabilized. The culprit seems to have a mind of its own as it continues to mutate and evolve within the host population.

"This combination bibliography-thesaurus . . . is distinguished by its thesaurus-index, ' a hierarchical listing of terms that also provides entry numbers for the citations in the first part of the book. These thesaurus descriptors are natural language terms' and according to the author provide a means with which one can efficiently locate specific information.' The work covers a wide range of topics. . . . Highly recommended for academic and general collections." Choice

Companies and their advisors are frequently faced with questions regarding mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. Until now, relevant information has only been available in large multi-volume sets or in volumes covering each aspect separately. This will be the first single-volume desktop reference to cover all important aspects at once, including business, legal, finance, accounting, tax, and process issues. The author writes in an engaging, accessible style that will appeal to professionals and students alike. Anyone seeking "one-stop shopping" for mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures will appreciate this very useful, concise, and readable new book.

A lot of time and money is invested in collaborative research and development projects at universities, research institutes and companies. But how should these complex projects be planned and run to create valuable commercial outcomes?

This book is a manual for all individuals and organisations from academia and industry working together on research and development projects. Whether grant funded, company to company or academic to company, this inspiring and highly readable book covers winning grant support, the legal arrangements, working with academics and practitioners, managing project progress and exploiting the project results.

The examples, practical methods and tips in this book will not only help the reader prepare for grant applications, but more importantly help to achieve the best results and returns from every collaborative project.

An Introduction to R and Python for Data Analysis helps teach students to code in both R and Python simultaneously. As both R and Python can be used in similar manners, it is useful and efficient to learn both at the same time, helping lecturers and students to teach and learn more, save time, whilst reinforcing the shared concepts and differences of the systems. This tandem learning is highly useful for students, helping them to become literate in both languages, and develop skills which will be handy after their studies. This book presumes no prior experience with computing, and is intended to be used by students from a variety of backgrounds. The side-by-side formatting of this book helps introductory graduate students quickly grasp the basics of R and Python, with the exercises providing helping them to teach themselves the skills they will need upon the completion of their course, as employers now ask for competency in both R and Python. Teachers and lecturers will also find this book useful in their teaching, providing a singular work to help ensure their students are well trained in both computer languages. All data for exercises can be found here: https://github.com/tbrown122387/r_and_python_book/tree/master/data. Key features: - Teaches R and Python in a "side-by-side" way. - Examples are tailored to aspiring data scientists and statisticians, not software engineers. - Designed for introductory graduate students. - Does not assume any mathematical background.