The information age has brought greater interconnection across the world, and transformed the global marketplace. To remain competitive, business firms look for ways of improving their ability to gauge business and economic conditions around the world. At the same time, advances in technology have revolutionized the way we process information and prepare business and economic forecasts. Secondary data searches, data collection, data entry and analysis, graphical visualization, and reporting can all be accomplished with the help of computers that provide access to information not previously available. Forecasters should therefore learn the techniques and models involved, as applied in this new era.

Business Forecasting: A Practical Approach is intended as an applied text for students and practitioners of forecasting who have some background in economics and statistics. The presentation is conceptual in nature with emphasis on rationale, application, and interpretation of the most commonly used forecasting techniques. The goal of this book is to provide students and managers with an overview of a broad range of techniques and an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. It is based on the assumption that forecasting skills are best developed and retained by starting with simple models, followed by repeated exposure to real world examples. The book makes extensive use of international examples to amplify concepts.

Service Leadership offers students, researchers, and leaders a leadership model originating in the service economy - but which is gaining ground in all sectors and industries - explained by experts that were key actors in that origination at DHL International. Designed for undergraduates and graduates but also useful for professionals in leadership positions, Hoshmand and Chung structure the book around the 3Cs of leadership in the service economy: Competence, Character, and Care. It shows how the integration of the 3Cs when applied in combination with each other creates an environment of trust within and outside the organization. Most importantly, it allows the reader to understand how a move from the manufacturing mindset (hierarchical decision making) to a service mindset (collective, qualitative, culturally sensitive) creates an ethical habitat and ecosystem that contributes to a firm's competitiveness and adds value to its brand image. Incorporating elements of leadership literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, and political science, including cases, and supported by a teaching manual and a full set of slides, this book is ideal core reading for students of service leadership and leadership in the service economy, and valuable to those learning about leadership more broadly.

Service Leadership offers students, researchers, and leaders a leadership model originating in the service economy - but which is gaining ground in all sectors and industries - explained by experts that were key actors in that origination at DHL International. Designed for undergraduates and graduates but also useful for professionals in leadership positions, Hoshmand and Chung structure the book around the 3Cs of leadership in the service economy: Competence, Character, and Care. It shows how the integration of the 3Cs when applied in combination with each other creates an environment of trust within and outside the organization. Most importantly, it allows the reader to understand how a move from the manufacturing mindset (hierarchical decision making) to a service mindset (collective, qualitative, culturally sensitive) creates an ethical habitat and ecosystem that contributes to a firm's competitiveness and adds value to its brand image. Incorporating elements of leadership literature, philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, and political science, including cases, and supported by a teaching manual and a full set of slides, this book is ideal core reading for students of service leadership and leadership in the service economy, and valuable to those learning about leadership more broadly.

The first edition of this book, popular around the world, is surpassed only by this new Second Edition. Improvements such as new and revised exercises, a broad range of practical and relevant case studies, and expanded theoretical concepts make this even better for users of statistics. The book emphasizes the practical application of statistics and provides examples in various fields of environmental and agriculture sciences. Because it uses simple, non-mathematical language to present statistical techniques, the reader requires only a familiarity with elementary algebra and mathematical notations to understand and apply the concepts described. This logically organized book covers the following topics: Part 1 introduces statistical concepts as they apply to different fields of environmental and agriculture sciences and provides descriptive measures of central tendency and variability; Part 2 covers probability and sampling concepts used in inferential statistics; Part 3 presents parametric methods in hypothesis testing, which include research designs; Part 4 discusses a number of nonparametric techniques; Part 5 explains tests of association and prediction; and lastly, analysis of change over time is detailed in Part 6. The appendices contain statistical tables for reference purposes.

Written to meet the needs of both students and applied researchers, Design of Experiments for Agriculture and the Natural Sciences, Second Edition serves as an introductory guide to experimental design and analysis. Like the popular original, this thorough text provides an understanding of the logical underpinnings of design and analysis by selecting and discussing only those carefully chosen designs that offer the greatest utility. However, it improves on the first edition by adhering to a step-by-step process that greatly improves accessibility and understanding. Real problems from different areas of agriculture and science are presented throughout to show how practical issues of design and analysis are best handled. Completely revised to greatly enhance readability, this new edition includes: A new chapter on covariance analysis to help readers reduce errors, while enhancing their ability to examine covariances among selected variables Expanded material on multiple regression and variance analysis Additional examples, problems, and case studies A step-by-step Minitab (R) guide to help with data analysis Intended for those in the agriculture, environmental, and natural science fields as well as statisticians, this text requires no previous exposure to analysis of variance, although some familiarity with basic statistical fundamentals is assumed. In keeping with the book's practical orientation, numerous workable problems are presented throughout to reinforce the reader's ability to creatively apply the principles and concepts in any given situation.

Written to meet the needs of both students and applied researchers, Design of Experiments for Agriculture and the Natural Sciences, Second Edition serves as an introductory guide to experimental design and analysis. Like the popular original, this thorough text provides an understanding of the logical underpinnings of design and analysis by selecting and discussing only those carefully chosen designs that offer the greatest utility. However, it improves on the first edition by adhering to a step-by-step process that greatly improves accessibility and understanding. Real problems from different areas of agriculture and science are presented throughout to show how practical issues of design and analysis are best handled. Completely revised to greatly enhance readability, this new edition includes- qA new chapter on covariance analysis to help readers reduce errors, while enhancing their ability to examine covariances among selected variables. qExpanded material on multiple regression and variance analysis. qAdditional examples, problems, and case studies qA step-by-step Minitab(R) guide to help with data analysis Intended for those in the agriculture, environmental, and natural science fields as well as statisticians, this text requires no previous exposure to analysis of variance, although some familiarity with basic statistical fundamentals is assumed. In keeping with the book's practical orientation, numerous workable problems are presented throughout to reinforce the reader's ability to creatively apply the principles and concepts in any given situation. A solutions manual is available for qualified buyers

The first edition of this book, popular around the world, is surpassed only by this new Second Edition. Improvements such as new and revised exercises, a broad range of practical and relevant case studies, and expanded theoretical concepts make this even better for users of statistics. The book emphasizes the practical application of statistics and provides examples in various fields of environmental and agriculture sciences. Because it uses simple, non-mathematical language to present statistical techniques, the reader requires only a familiarity with elementary algebra and mathematical notations to understand and apply the concepts described.
This logically organized book covers the following topics: Part 1 introduces statistical concepts as they apply to different fields of environmental and agriculture sciences and provides descriptive measures of central tendency and variability; Part 2 covers probability and sampling concepts used in inferential statistics; Part 3 presents parametric methods in hypothesis testing, which include research designs; Part 4 discusses a number of nonparametric techniques; Part 5 explains tests of association and prediction; and lastly, analysis of change over time is detailed in Part 6. The appendices contain statistical tables for reference purposes.

The information age has brought greater interconnection across the world, and transformed the global marketplace. To remain competitive, business firms look for ways of improving their ability to gauge business and economic conditions around the world. At the same time, advances in technology have revolutionized the way we process information and prepare business and economic forecasts. Secondary data searches, data collection, data entry and analysis, graphical visualization, and reporting can all be accomplished with the help of computers that provide access to information not previously available. Forecasters should therefore learn the techniques and models involved, as applied in this new era. Business Forecasting: A Practical Approach is intended as an applied text for students and practitioners of forecasting who have some background in economics and statistics. The presentation is conceptual in nature with emphasis on rationale, application, and interpretation of the most commonly used forecasting techniques. The goal of this book is to provide students and managers with an overview of a broad range of techniques and an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. It is based on the assumption that forecasting skills are best developed and retained by starting with simple models, followed by repeated exposure to real world examples. The book makes extensive use of international examples to amplify concepts.

While many fields of our current life and technology make use of the involvement of chemistry, even in a subtle way as quantum-, mathematical-, physical-, nano-, bio-, or eco-, and chemical disciplines, the chemistry itself drives almost all nature cycles through the atomic and molecular structure and reactivity universal principles. This book presents an interdisciplinary-internationally picture of chemical information embedded in various micro- and macro- systems in order to show how fertile the field of research and knowledge is thanks to chemistry.

The globalization of business and the ubiquity of available data in the information age are the driving forces behind the increasing importance of economic forecasting. In order to remain competitive, private and public organizations alike must employ forecasting techniques effectively. Hoshmand emphasizes the application and practical use of such techniques rather than their theoretical grounding. Decision makers and students who have a solid background in economics and statistics will find this book eminently useful. After discussing the role of forecasting in business decisions, the author moves on to smoothing techniques, regression models, and the advanced time series models of Box-Jenkins. Of particular help to practitioners is the concluding chapter on how to communicate forecasts to management.

Forecasting professionals and researchers will benefit greatly from the information presented by Hoshmand, especially in their role as advisors to management. Few forecasters and even fewer managers will have had the luxury to remain fully informed of the new developments in this rapidly expanding field. Meanwhile, the importance of accurate forecasting to every realm of corporate strategy--production, inventory, purchasing, accounting, marketing, finance, and acquisitions decisions, to name a few--has increased exponentially due to the proliferation of data, the heating up of global competition, and the softening of many markets. No one today can afford to remain ignorant of the importance of economic forecasting for business decisions.